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Text only of letters sent from the Committee on Energy and Commerce Democrats


January 27, 2004

 

Mr. Robert Wright
Chairman and CEO
NBC Television Network
30 Rockefeller Plaza
New York, New York 10112

Dear Mr. Wright:

As you are aware, during NBC's live broadcast of the 2003 Golden Globe Awards on January 19, 2003, the musical performer Bono, while accepting an award, uttered the phrase "this is really, really f**king brilliant." Bono's statement was transmitted unedited to NBC owned and affiliated stations in the Eastern and Central time zones and then broadcast to millions of homes. This broadcast occurred during a viewing period in which the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has determined that children are likely to be watching television.

Since that time, the FCC has been asked to determine whether the broadcast was indecent, as a matter of law, and the FCC has concluded that it was not. However, in my mind, whether Bono's remarks fall within the FCC's narrow reading of the definition of indecency is not the core issue. A more important question is why the NBC network permitted such objectionable language to be broadcast to millions of American homes. Along these lines I would appreciate answers to the following questions:

1. Does the NBC Television Network believe that it is acceptable to transmit programming -- live or otherwise -- that contains the "f word" or similarly objectionable language? Does the network believe that it has a responsibility to its viewers to prevent such broadcasts?

2. At the time of the January 2003 broadcast, what preventive mechanisms and procedures did NBC have in place to ensure that such objectionable language was not transmitted to NBC broadcast stations? If such mechanisms did exist, why did they fail?

3. Since the January 2003 broadcast, what changes or improvements have you made to such mechanisms and procedures to ensure that such objectionable content is not aired again?

4. Legislation has been introduced in the House (H.R. 3717) which would increase by ten-fold the monetary penalty that the FCC can impose upon licensees that broadcast programming which contains obscene, indecent or profane content. Do you support such legislation? If so, why? If not, why not?

5. The FCC has recently indicated that it may begin to impose monetary penalties per utterance rather than per broadcast program upon licensees that broadcast obscene, indecent or profane content. Do you support such a change in the agency's enforcement policy? If so, why? If not, why not?

6. The FCC has also recently indicated that, for certain licensees that repeatedly violate its indecency rules, it may begin to seek the revocation of the repeat offenders licenses rather than simply continue to impose fines. Do you support such a change in enforcement policy? If so, why? If not, why not?

As you may be aware, the Subcommittee on Telecommunications and the Internet plans to conduct a hearing on the subject of broadcast indecency tomorrow, January 28, 2004. I would appreciate if you could respond to this letter on or before Tuesday, February 3, 2004, and I will ask that your answers be included in the hearing record. If you have any questions, please contact me, or have your staff contact Gregg Rothschild, Minority Counsel, at 202-226-3400.

I hope you agree that it is wholly unacceptable for the NBC network to broadcast objectionable language as it did last January, and that you will ensure that what happened during the Golden Globe Awards will never happen again on your network.

Sincerely,


JOHN D. DINGELL
RANKING MEMBER

cc:   The Honorable W. J. "Billy" Tauzin, Chairman
        Committee on Energy and Commerce

 

Prepared by the Committee on Energy and Commerce
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