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FCC Grants Extension of Indecency Comment Deadlines

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A few minutes ago, the FCC issued a Public Notice granting a thirty-day extension of the deadlines for submitting comments and reply comments in response to the FCC’s April 1, 2013 Public Notice seeking input on whether the Commission should make changes to its current broadcast indecency policies. Comments and reply comments were originally due on May 20 and June 18, 2013, respectively, but have now been extended to June 19, 2013 (comments) and July 18, 2013 (reply comments). The extension was granted in response to a Motion filed by the National Association of Broadcasters on April 26, 2013.

Scott Flick of our office posted a detailed analysis of the Public Notice early last month. To refresh your memory, the Public Notice (jointly released by the FCC’s Enforcement Bureau and General Counsel’s Office) was issued in response to FCC Chairman Genachowski’s request that FCC staff review the “Commission’s broadcast indecency policies and enforcement to ensure they are fully consistent with vital First Amendment principles.”

With respect to guidance for parties planning to file comments, the quoted language below from the Public Notice describes the matters on which the FCC is seeking comment:

  1. [W]hether the full Commission should … treat isolated expletives in a manner consistent with our decision in Pacifica Foundation, Inc., Memorandum Opinion and Order, 2 FCC Rcd 2698, 2699 (1987) (“If a complaint focuses solely on the use of expletives, we believe that . . . deliberate and repetitive use in a patently offensive manner is a requisite to a finding of indecency.”)?
  2. Should the Commission instead maintain the approach to isolated expletives set forth in its decision in Complaints Against Various Broadcast Licensees Regarding Their Airing of the “Golden Globe Awards” Program, Memorandum Opinion and Order, 19 FCC Rcd 4975 (2004)?
  3. As another example, should the Commission treat isolated (non-sexual) nudity the same as or differently than isolated expletives?

The Public Notice also states that parties are invited “to address these issues as well as any other aspect of the Commission’s substantive indecency policies.” As Scott pointed out in his analysis last month, this final question appears to open the door to a broader review of indecency doctrine than the FCC has engaged in for quite some time.

Given the controversy the FCC’s indecency policies have historically generated, you can expect to see plenty of comments filed on June 19 and reply comments on July 18 by parties on all sides of this issue. As the FCC moves toward new leadership with the departure of Chairman Genachowski, the FCC’s indecency enforcement policies could take some interesting turns.