Four and a half years after Justin Timberlake and Janet Jackson teamed up for their memorable Superbowl wardrobe malfunction, CBS has finally been let off the financial hook.
In case you forgot (and how could you?) here’s the infamous performance.
Today, a federal appeals court rejected a $550,000 indecency fine that the Federal Communications Commission levied against the network. You can read all about the decision here.
Now, a half a million dollars is a drop in the bucket to a television network. But that fine scared the heck out of anyone working at the local level. Because in the wake of Superbowl “outcry” (real or imagined), a new law was passed that increased the fines tenfold for any broadcaster caught violating the FCC obscenity guidelines. Worst case scenario for us, some bystander uses profane language during a newscast live shot, and KXLY gets a $325,000 fine for each utterance. Three expletives, and we could be looking at nearly a million bucks. A network can afford a fine like that. We can’t, and neither can most local affiliates. That’s why many local stations invested in equipment allowing us to operate on a “delay” (in our case, seven seconds) so that we had time to -- frantically -- delete any profane language or images that might unexpectedly pop up during live TV. The equipment wasn’t cheap, but considering what’s at stake, it’s a wise investment.
Don’t get me wrong. As broadcasters, we have an obligation to take reasonable steps to keep profane material off the airwaves. But I think a $325,000 fine for one curse word or naughty image is…what’s that word? Obscene. Thank goodness that cooler heads at the 3rd U.S Circuit Court of Appeals feel the same way.
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Wow, some sense was slapped into the FCC? I’m stunned.
Can the 3rd U.S Circuit Court of Appeals slap the FCC over their ridiculous mountains of paperwork next? Pretty please, with sugar on top? I’m not jesting either – I’ve dealt with it first hand too many times (E-Rate, the lovely program that causes public school districts to sign everyone and their dog up for the free/reduced lunch program in slim hopes that the FCC might throw them a bone from the universal service fund to help pay for very expensive computer networking equipment).
To put things in perspective in just how ridiculous the FCC indecency fines are – the fines that were levied, and later dropped to just $3000, against the owners of the Sago Mine in the aftermath of the disaster back in 2006 that killed 13 miners was $105840 in total. Show a boob on the boob-tube and that dollar figure triples in the magical world called FCC-la-la-land. Apparently showing something that the majority of human babies on Earth has seen up close and in person is more of a moral outrage according the federal government than devastating thirteen families in a tiny West Virginia community and therefor must be financially punished.
And whats even more pathetic about these fines is that 99.8% of the complaints that came into the FCC at one point, and most likely still does, originated from a single conservative activist group – the Parents Television Council (the same group that slammed a SpongeBob SquarePants episode of all things for being “indecent”). They even make it easy for someone to file a complaint with the FCC – click a button and you too can help to potentially put your local TV station out of business.
There was no ‘wardrobe malfuncion’. Anyone with a brain can see they did it on purpose for a purpose……
1-Notice his hesitation to make sure he got a good grip on the velcro strip on her top. What was the need for him to reach over there any way, coinincidentally at the last second of the song?????……….
2- Notice how she stands perfectly still and leans up against him so the ‘wardrobe malfunction’ wont ‘malfunction’.
3-Strange that her costume was designed this way, just to sing a song, isnt it?.
Instead of giving them both a month in jail for their publicity stunt, we call it a ‘wardrobe malfunction’. Maybe you CAN fool most of the people most of the time!
PS………..If anyone was going to have a ‘wardrobe malfunction’, wouldn’t it seem to be one of the back up girls who were half dressed and grinding around on stage??
The jackson girl was fully clothed from head to toe. Its odd how her ‘wardrobe malfunction’ happened as she was standing ‘perfectly still’.
No explanation was ever given for why he reached over to grab her top in the first place. Maybe the sensors were so caught up in the ‘moment’ reviewing the clip for the next two weeks, that they forgot to ask the question..”what was originally intended to happen in the choreography at this moment”?
I think its all kind of funny how we cant even admit the truth when it stares us in the face.