PULSE:NEWS&OPINION :: MAY 26, 2004

Local broadcasters treading lightly during FCC crackdown


By JACOB McCARTHY

At MSU student radio station WDBM (88.9 FM), it has always been appropriate to play music that might be controversial during “safe harbor hours” between midnight and 6.

That recently changed.

“Safe harbor hours are no longer considered safe,” student station manager Ed Glazer says when asked how The Impact, as the station is known, has been affected by a recent crackdown on broadcast indecency by the Federal Communications Commission.

While viewers and listeners may not have noticed a change in their favorite radio or television station, the effects of intensified efforts by the FCC to curb obscenity on the air is being felt in Lansing studios.

“We are making our disc jockeys aware that the FCC is getting more conservative now,” Glazer says.

It is difficult to control what DJs say on the radio, especially during morning hours when “shock jocks” like Howard Stern rely on a mixture of risqué jokes and improvised commentary to hold listeners through the groggy pre-work routine.

Recently, the FCC crackdown caused Clear Channel Communications to cancel Stern’s program on their six stations that carried him after the FCC slapped Clear Channel with a $495,000 fine for Stern’s “indecency.”

Stern has been vocal about his belief that his freedom of speech has been violated. But others in the business are keeping their mouths shut.Tim Barron, co-host of The Tim and Deb Show, broadcast weekday mornings on WMMQ (94.9 FM), is sometimes controversial in his attempts to entertain listeners. When asked if his performance has been affected by the FCC fine increases Barron said, “We aren’t to discuss anything with the media regarding the FCC,” a comment that is echoed by others at Citadel Broadcasting Corp., the group that owns WMMQ.

Kim Gibson, a media contact for Citadel, says that policy is company-wide and extends beyond matters involving the FCC. Citadel Broadcasting does not speak with the media and forbids its employees from doing so, as well.

When asked why such a policy is necessary, Gibson declined to comment.

Mid-Michigan Radio Group, which owns four stations in Lansing, allows its employees to speak with the press, says MMRG general Manager David Johnson.

The stations he oversees, WVIC, WJXQ, WQTX and WKMY, have not needed to change in response to the FCC enforcement, Johnson says, because three years ago they committed themselves to broadcast decency. That commitment involved the release of several “blue” on-air personalities and the addition of a five-second delay for any rebroadcast programs like the Bob and Tom Show, which is recorded in Indianapolis and heard here in Lansing on WJXQ (106.1 FM).

Johnson says broadcast decency standards fluctuate. “The pendulum goes too far to the right one time, then too far to the left.” He says the current pressure from the FCC is a reaction to years of increasingly relaxed standards.

MSU associate professor of Journalism Folu F. Ogundimu says it is inappropriate for the FCC to regulate decency at a national level since each community has its own standards of decency. The original intent of the FCC regulations, he says, was to ensure a diversity of ideas in broadcast and the enforcement of standards of decency undermines that.

An FCC spokesperson defended the commission against such attacks, though, stressing that the FCC does not monitor broadcasts from Washington but rather responds to complaints from viewers regarding stations in their hometowns.

The FCC could not offer any statistics on the number of indecency-related complaints received from Lansing in the last year, but the commission’s Web site (www.fcc.gov) indicates that no citations have been issued in Lansing this year or in 2003.

That may be because radio and television in Lansing is less controversial than other cities, or it may be because Lansing viewers are more accepting of controversy.

Deanne Hamilton, general manager of public television station WKAR, says the station has the choice of airing an audio-edited version of many of its programs. In those situations Hamilton says they usually air the safer alternative.

WKAR did that with a recent episode of Masterpiece Theater and while Hamilton says she does not expect WKAR programming will offend viewers, people at the station “are being more cognizant of what we put on the air.”

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