[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 150 (2004), Part 2]
[House]
[Page 2301]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




  CONGRESS SHOULD HOLD BROADCAST MEDIA TO A HIGHER STANDARD OF DECENCY

  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Bishop of Utah). Under a previous order 
of the House, the gentleman from Nebraska (Mr. Osborne) is recognized 
for 5 minutes.
  Mr. OSBORNE. Mr. Speaker, 100 million people viewed this year's Super 
Bowl. It was a great football game. Unfortunately, most of the 
publicity did not focus on the football game, it rather focused on the 
half-time show and a few ads. Matter of fact, there were 200,000 
complaints concerning some of the indecency that were filed. I think 
this illustrates the culture war we are currently experiencing, because 
most in the entertainment industry really could not understand the 
outcry. This is pretty much business as usual. Yet those in middle 
America were not quite so enthralled. They were hit right between the 
eyes by the media content that our children are immersed in almost 
daily.
  Many Members of Congress, myself included, were concerned and 
somewhat outraged, and I just am concerned that this outrage may be 
short-lived if we look at the history of such things. In 2003, 240,000 
complaints were filed with the FCC concerning indecent and obscene 
programming, yet there were practically no responses by the FCC or by 
Congress. Few of these complaints were even answered by the FCC. 
Complaints are often bundled, they are not counted separately, so there 
may have been well over 240,000 complaints filed. Only a handful of 
citations were issued, which resulted in minimal fines, roughly four or 
five citations. No TV station has ever been fined in the history of the 
FCC for broadcasting indecent material. Since the FCC began in 1934, no 
broadcast license has ever been suspended.
  The FCC receives $278 million from Congress annually, yet it is 
largely derelict in the enforcement of its duties. On June 2, 2003, the 
FCC increased the market share media conglomerates can control from 35 
percent to 45 percent. What does that mean? It means in a major media 
market, one conglomerate can own three TV stations, one newspaper, and 
eight radio stations. So there has been a huge amount of concentration 
in the media industry.
  As media control is more centralized, and there is less local 
control, there is more emphasis on indecent programming. There is a 
focus on the bottom line; simply what will sell. Locally- owned outlets 
are more sensitive to community standards and are less likely to 
broadcast indecent material. Congress, I think, needs to reverse this 
trend towards concentration and move back to that 35 percent of the 
market that was originally the standard.
  Our children are paying a price. The average young person by the age 
of 18 witnesses 200,000 violent acts and 40,000 murders on television. 
They average roughly 6 hours of media exposure per day. Research by the 
Congressional Public Health Summit in 2000 indicated that children 
exposed to media violence are more violent later in life; more apt to 
commit crimes of violence. Studies show that children watching sexually 
explicit programming adopt more permissive attitudes towards premarital 
sex and become more promiscuous.
  Our out-of-wedlock birth was 5 percent in 1960, and today it is 
roughly 33 percent. One out of every three children coming into our 
culture are born with a huge disadvantage. They have two strikes 
against them. These children, and really all of us in our culture, pay 
a great price. So what I would urge, Mr. Speaker, is that Congress 
needs to stay the course, play its part, and hold the FCC to its 
charge.
  The gentleman from California (Mr. Baca) and I have started a caucus, 
the Sex and Violence in Media Caucus, which we hope people will join. 
Several weeks ago, Bono uttered an obscenity four times during prime 
time, and the FCC refused to penalize the broadcast network because 
they said he used the obscenity as an adjective. As a result, the 
gentleman from California (Mr. Ose) has introduced the bill Clean 
Airways Act, H.R. 3687, which defines eight obscene words, and it says 
if these words are used, no matter whether used as adjectives, verbs, 
adverbs, pronouns, whatever, they are still subject to penalty. Also, 
the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Upton) has introduced H.R. 3717, the 
Broadcast Decency Enforcement Act, which increases penalties for 
obscenity from $27,500 to $275,000, a tenfold increase, which may get 
some people's attention.
  I urge my colleagues, Mr. Speaker, to hold the broadcast media to a 
higher standard and to require the FCC to enforce commonly held 
standards of decency.

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