Big Brother's watching

HOLLYWOOD REEL

In March 2003, in one of the rooms of the fifth floor of Shastri Bhawan where the Union information and broadcasting ministry is located, the draft of a legal notice was thrust into my hand.

A quick glance revealed that the senior government official sitting across the desk was ordering the immediate closure of one the most popular TV channels in India.

Its crime: the repeated telecast of a particularly offensive and banned TV commercial despite repeated warnings. As executive director of the Indian Broadcasting Foundation, I requested a few minutes delay before the order was passed.

On reaching the concerned chief executive officer on his cell phone in South Africa, a quick solution was found. The commercial was pulled off the air with immediate effect and the channel went back to broadcasting, business as usual.

The regulation of television content by governments is like walking through a fearful landscape and requires urgent attention by broadcasters, producers and advertisers.

A few years ago an inter-faith organisation based in New York City called "Morality in Media" asked for a "Turn off TV Day" on Valentine's Day to protest against indecency on television.

It claimed that standards of decency on TV had plummeted and blamed broadcasters for pursuing high ratings with little sense of their responsibility to serve the public interest.

Another organisation, "The Parents Television Council" which has nearly one million members across the United States, has been campaigning since 1995 to ensure that children are not constantly assaulted by sex, violence and profanity on television.

On February 1, 2004, the live telecast of the Super Bowl half time show in the US wound up with singer Justin Timberlake tearing off part of Janet Jackson's costume. The broadcaster CBS quickly cut away from the shot and did not mention the exposure on the air.

Television viewers in United States were outraged. This was the opportunity "Morality in Media" and "The Parents TV Council" were waiting for. Both organisations reacted immediately and filed several thousand complaints with the Federal Communications Commission (FCC).

The FCC began its crackdown following the Super Bowl incident, levying fines on CBS, Viacom and Clear Channel (for the broadcast of certain Howard Stern shows).

The FCC fined U2 lead singer Bono for indecency as a result of his uttering an expletive at last year's Golden Globe Awards. The 169 stations of Rupert Murdoch's Fox network were slapped with a fine of US$ 1.2 million (the largest TV fine ever by the FCC) for broadcasting "Married by America" featuring digitally obscured nudity.

Even the US Congress took steps to raise fines against indecent broadcasters through the Broadcast Decency Enforcement Act.

Broadcasters in the US started to feel the heat. Advertisers became more cautious of the programmes they were sponsoring.

CBS announced a five-minute broadcast delay (both audio and video) to deal with any issues arising out the Grammy awards; ABC followed suit at the Oscars; Clear Channel Communications announced a zero tolerance policy for indecency, fired Florida DJ Bubba the Love Sponge and stopped carrying Howard Stern broadcasts; and Victoria's Secret decided to drop its annual fashion show. Fox has since cancelled the show "Married by America" and appealed to FCC for an overturn of the $1.2 million fine.

According to FCC regulations, terrestrial television channels cannot air "obscene" material at any time and cannot air "indecent" material between 6 a.m. and 10 p.m. The FCC defines obscene material as describing sexual conduct "in a patently offensive way" and lacking "serious literary, artistic, political or scientific value."

This March, US President George W. Bush chose Kevin J. Martin, one of the Federal Communication Commission's leaders in the crackdown on indecency, as its new chairman.

The FCC is likely to be more active on indecency now and Martin has already said that broadcasters should be fined for each utterance or depiction of indecent material within a programme.

In 2004 the FCC received a record 1.4 million complaints from viewers and proposed fines of nearly $8 million in 12 cases involving television or radio stations, up from just US$ 440,000 the year before.

The FCC has even proposed a broad expansion of indecency rules, which were significantly toughened just last year. President Bush, answering a question on C-SPAN TV channel about the pending broadcast indecency fines legislation said, "Well, they're going to collect a lot of money when some of these TV shows are still on."

The FCC is also looking for increases in the size of fines and new procedures that could even jeopardise the licences of stations that repeatedly violate the rules.

Back in India, the recent missives to Cine World channel in Mumbai and India TV in New Delhi by the information and broadcasting ministry are a clear signal where the regulatory environment may be heading.

There still may be time for the Indian broadcasting community to adopt a self imposed content regulatory mechanism and avoid the creation of a politically motivated watchdog.

Bhuvan Lall is the president and CEO of LALL Entertainment, a company based in Los Angeles and New Delhi. He can be contacted at lallentertainment@hotmail.com