Stern Show Fined $495,000

[BoondockSaint]

APRIL 8--In another broadside at Howard Stern, the Federal Communications Commission today fined Clear Channel Communications a whopping $495,000 for last year's broadcast of an allegedly indecent bit on the King of All Media's popular radio program. Acting on a listener complaint, the FCC hammered Clear Channel over an April 2003 broadcast during which Stern and his cohorts discussed their sexual practices and the use of a purported personal hygiene product called "Sphincterine." Included in the commission's notice of liability--which cites 18 alleged indecency violations--was a transcript of the offending broadcast, a copy of which you'll find below. Until late-February, Clear Channel aired the shock jock's show on six of its stations. But the radio star was abruptly dumped after Clear Channel concluded that Stern's February 24 broadcast violated the media giant's new zero-tolerance decency standards. Last month, Infinity Broadcasting (which employs Stern and airs his show nationwide) was fined $27,500 for a "graphic and explicit" July 2001 Stern show.

http://www.thesmokinggun.com/archive/0408043fcc1.html

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[WindowSill]

This, Ashcroft going after porno, and Bush posing with all the black kids is sure to get them re-elected...

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[Iamnotatool]

It's official, we live in Communist USSR

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Please don't hold my huge nutbag against me, or I'll hold it against you that you have flapjack tits

[Furtherman]

It's official, we live in Communist USSR


That would be a fine of 14,113,977.25 Rubles.

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[Crippler]

Didn't Howard say that as soon as the fines were handed down, he was out? It'll be interesting to see what K-Rock sounds like on Monday morning/

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Let's get Sirius...
I plead the FiF!

[TheGameHHH]

i really for bad for the man, this is bullshit

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[mikeyboy]

Even for the Stern-haters, this is a bad thing.

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[BoondockSaint]

Even for the Stern-haters, this is a bad thing.

This is so right. Everyone is now saying that Stern and O&A will go to satellite radio, and the FCC doesn't regulate that or cable tv. Do you really think that will last? They are handing out fines for stuff that happened years ago. This is scary.

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[Furtherman]

Uh oh. Does this mean he's done?

Clear Channel Drops Stern on FCC Threat (http://apnews1.iwon.com//article/20040408/D81QT9M01.html?PG=home&SEC=news)

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[ChickenHawk]

And this is why my vote in 2004 goes to Hulk Hogan.

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[JesterOfSadness]

It's official, we live in Communist USSR



Took the words right outta my mouth.

Better yet, Just swallow some jacks-CM Punk

[IrishAlkey]

Incredible.

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[Late2party]

It's kind of funny that <a href='http://www.howardstern.com/-%20Take%20Action.html'target=blank>howardstern.com</a> has a link to a fundraising page on John Kerry's campaign website. Kerry sits on the <a href='http://commerce.senate.gov/about/membership.html'target=blank>Senate Commerce Committee</a> which <a href='http://commerce.senate.gov/newsroom/printable.cfm?id=218845'target=blank>unanimously</a> passed the Senate's version of the Broadcast Decency Enforcement Act, S.2056, on March 9. That's the bill with the $500,000-per-utterance indecency fines, and the bill that enables fines against PERFORMERS:

"Section 104. Indecency Penalties for Non-Licensees.

"This section would streamline the existing process for fining non-licensees for violations of 18 U.S.C. 1464. This section would permit the FCC to fine persons who utter obscene, indecent, or profane material willfully or intentionally and who should have known that such material would be broadcast without any prior citation. It would also raise the limit on such a fine to $500,000 for each violation. A `violation' may be an individual utterance of indecent material."

and, by the way, as passed it applies broadcast rules (for violence) to cable and satellite for the first time: "S. 2056 would impose private-sector mandates as defined in UMRA on the owners of television networks, broadcast stations, cable operators, and providers of satellite broadcast service".

See <a href='http://www.congress.gov/cgi-bin/cpquery/R?cp108:FLD010:@1(sr253):'target=blank>www.congress.gov</a> for the above quoted text, and the roll call votes on the bill and its amendments. Kerry voted to apply rules against "obscene, etc., broadcasting" to cable and satellite TV too, but that amendment failed.

Hmmmmxm. He can't be sirius :)

So Howard's own web page links to a donation page for a candidate for President who has voted in the Senate not only to censor him, but to fine him PERSONALLY. Weird.

[ChrisTheCop]

Not only that, L2P, but it was "democrats" like Tipper Gore who inititiated the practice of labeling offensive music albums, which lead to tv ratings, which led to stiffer movie ratings, which led to all this. No matter what their party, the powers that be only want more power. Happy voting!

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[Reephdweller]

It's rediculous that he's completely trashing Bush for going after him, and yet Kerry is basically doing the same thing except even more directly personal to Howard. I mean if he is successful in persuading enough people to vote Bush out of office for this reason, he will also be bitching about Kerry next year. Either way he's screwed.

He has lots of legitimate arguments to make against Bush, however for this topic he's wrong to just blame it all on Bush. Overwhelming amounts of democrates are working hand in hand with republicans on this.

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[zoom2457]

It's rediculous that he's completely trashing Bush for going after him, and yet Kerry is basically doing the same thing except even more directly personal to Howard. I mean if he is successful in persuading enough people to vote Bush out of office for this reason, he will also be bitching about Kerry next year. Either way he's screwed.


Howard knows all this. He is just saying that Bush is a religious right puppet-head, and that needs to change. He knows that if Kerry is elected things won't necessarily get better for him. But, at the very least, Bush will be gone.



"Excuse me, excuse me I believe you have my stapler"

[Duke]

its good and bad


good: cuse i hate stern

bad: cuse RnF have a less of a chance coming back to NY...

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[JustJon]

Interesting how the fines came down while Stern was on vacation last week.

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[Late2party]

Interesting how the fines came down while Stern was on vacation last week.

I read somewhere that Thursday was the last day the Commission could act before the statute of limitations ran out, and that said statute was 1 year... from the complaint or the broadcast, I don't know. But that sounds fishy... wasn't Clear Channel just fined $750,000 for a 3 year old Bubba the Love Sponge broadcast?

Assuming the 1 year statute of limitations is somehow true, though, my conspiracy-theorist reflex is that everyone in government knows you bury bad news by releasing it at 5 PM on Friday, knowing nobody will pay any attention to it over the weekend, if it's reported at all. See <a href='http://www.prfuel.com/archives/000040.html'>"White House Mysteriously Releases All Bad News On Friday" </a>, which includes a great line: "I wouldn't put out a positive press release later than 3:00 PM EST/EDT on Thursday if I wanted any coverage."

I called the FCC, because the press release on the <a href='http://hraunfoss.fcc.gov/edocs_public/attachmatch/DOC-245911A1.doc'>Notice of Apparent Liability</a> didn't have a time on it, and they told me it went out between 2:30 and 3:30 PM. Hmmmm.

On the other hand, being Easter weekend Friday was in fact Good Friday, so maybe the Commission wanted to avoid reminding anyone of Howard's 'Crucified By the FCC' box set from some years back.

[Furtherman]

From imdb.com:

Viacom President Karmazin Defends Howard Stern

Viacom President and COO Mel Karmazin has again come to the defense of Howard Stern, telling a New York audience that Stern is merely exercising his constitutional rights to free speech. Asked by The New Yorker's Ken Auletta whether it was proper for Stern to discuss such matters as anal sex on his program, Karmazin replied: "We are fighting in Iraq for freedom. ... If it doesn't appeal to you, shut the radio off. Just because you don't like the words 'anal sex, ' doesn't make it indecent." Stern's program is syndicated by Viacom's Infinity Broadcasting unit. Meanwhile, it was reported Tuesday that Stern's radio show finished No. 1 in Los Angeles last week for the first time since 1995 and that it also finished first in New York for the first time since 2000.


Nice Mel! Excellent quote.


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