December 1, 2005

Cable TV Drawing Fire from the FCC

There's a lot of talk about the FCC cracking down on cable broadcasters because of content. According to the AP:

The chairman of the Federal Communications Commission is warning cable and satellite TV programmers to clean up their act.
Kevin Martin said programmers risk coming under sharper government scrutiny unless they give parents better tools to shield children from racy shows.

Like most people, I'm torn between protecting my children and losing my right to watch what I want. I ran across this article by Lisa J. Scott that I really agree with:

I don't want to live in a vanilla world. I want lots of reds and blacks and plaids and swirls of color. I want to chuckle at bad taste, and to turn off the television in disgust when I see crummy programming. Mostly, I want a window on the real world, with programming that reflects who we are, with all our warts. We are both noble and shameful, deep and shallow, thrilling and boring, sexual and asexual, fabulously talented and shockingly untalented. When our kids were young, we muted the colors of their world to pastels. The adult world has vibrant color.
I'm afraid of "federal decency standards." Your decency isn't necessarily mine. We can take sensible precautions, such as airing adult material at night, and having systems in place to block unwanted channels. (And that "off" switch, that the FCC's Martin dismissed so lightly? It works.)

But to impose the values of some onto the rest of us, to limit art so that no one has to see or hear anything that might upset him or her, is wrong.

So the big question is how do we protect our kids and still enjoy the best and worst of cable? I think a start is to mandate that adult shows not be advertised before 10 PM (both network and cable). How do you explain a "Nip Tuck" commercial to your child who's watching a syndicated rerun at 6 pm?

Leave us a comment and let us know what you think.