In the wake of the scandal that has come to be known as “Nipplegate,” Capitol Hill and Big Media are entangled in a song and dance that is no less entertaining – and no less choreographed – than Janet Jackson’s iniquitous pas de deux with Justin Timberlake.
The middle-aged songstress, it turns out, was not the only public figure who saw in the Super Bowl halftime show an opportunity to revive her flagging (some might say “sagging”) popular appeal.
Take Michael K. Powell, America’s chief media regulator. After his widely unpopular attempts to revise the country’s broadcast and telecommunications rules last year, the Bush-appointed FCC chairman wasted no time in appealing to the nation’s puritanical sensibilities by holding the media to account for Jackson’s boob.
Powell pledged to crack down on obscene broadcasts, underlining his intentions with a promise of heftier fines for offenders, including the threat of revoking broadcast licences where necessary.
Soon Capitol Hill was in on the act too, hauling several media executives before congressional committees to explain the deleterious surge in sexually explicit broadcasts. Republican congresswoman Heather Wilson, her voice shaking with tears of rage, scolded Viacom CEO Mel Karmazin, whose CBS subsidiary aired the wicked halftime show: “You knew what you were doing: you knew that shock and indecency creates a buzz that moves market share and lines your pockets.”
Karmazin duly hung his head in shame, and, together with other industry representatives, committed himself to measures that would stem the tide of rampant licentiousness. ABC, for instance, intends to broadcast viewer discretion ratings after every commercial break, not just at the beginning of shows – a step that Fox and NBC said they would consider taking as well; live TV events, such as the Super Bowl and the Academy Awards, will now be broadcast with a five-second tape delay to allow for deletion of offensive content; and the networks agreed to revive a five-year old technology called the V-chip, designed to give parents more control over what their children watch.
The most fawning mea culpa by far, however, came not from television broadcasters, but from radio giant Clear Channel. John Hogan, the company’s president and chief executive, told members of congress that he was “embarrassed” by some of the shows broadcast over his radio stations – in particular, those hosted by Bubba the Love Sponge and Howard Stern.
Florida deejay Bubba the Love Sponge (that’s his real name: he recently had it legally changed from Todd Clem) found himself out of a job after the FCC imposed fines for indecency violations on his show totalling an unprecedented US$755,000. And “shock jock” Howard Stern was suspended from all six of the Clear Channel stations that aired his syndicated show. Not to be outdone, several stations owned by radio rival Infinity, a division of Viacom, removed a host of vulgar songs from their playlists, including Pink Floyd’s 1973 chart-topper, “Money.”
And thus was Big Media chastened. Never again would a naked mammary desecrate the Super Bowl Sabbath. Thus did the Republican-dominated FCC and Congress – armed with the indomitable sword of American family values – smite the sinners at Viacom and Clear Channel and drag them from the darkness into the light.
As coups go, it’s right up there with America’s recent success in Haiti. Unlike Aristide’s ouster, however, this is a triumph for which the ruling party is only too delighted to take the credit: a tactical victory for the God-fearing right in the “culture wars” that have been raging on American soil ever since Spiro Agnew did battle against rock music, LSD and the liberal media in the early seventies. And in an election year to boot! Team Bush could not have hoped for a better foil to the legions of homosexuals skipping arm-in-arm across California and New York declaring themselves married.
But outside of the occasional opportunity to score points with social conservatives, the administration has shown little serious commitment in bringing Big Media to heel. On the contrary, the FCC has thus far bent over backwards to loosen the rules that prevent large media owners from growing larger. And the latest concessions by the likes of Clear Channel are unlikely to have executives tossing and turning with worry. Ditching a popular deejay from six radio stations might seem a high price to pay for regaining the favour of regulators, but it tends to smart a little less when you have a portfolio of 1,200 channels and counting.
Congress seemed happy enough, though. It probably didn’t hurt that three days before his suspension, Howard Stern declared himself a new convert to the “anybody but Bush” camp, calling the president “a Jesus freak.” It’s worth remembering too that Clear Channel is the same company whose stations unanimously jettisoned the Dixie Chicks from playlists after the band members came out against the War in Iraq, and that the company’s chairman, a close friend and business associate of George Bush the elder, is a major contributor to Republican Party coffers.
As for the fines, well, any losses should be more than offset by the boon that Bush’s re-election campaign will bring to big media companies in the form of political advertising placements. In its first three weeks alone, the campaign has bought $4,5 million of airtime – the bulk of it on stations like Fox News, which tend to show the incumbent in the most favourable light – kicking off what promises to be the biggest election ad blitz in American history.
One is reminded of the immortal words of Pink Floyd’s Roger Waters: “Money. It’s a hit. Don’t give me that do-goody-good bullshit.”
Tim Spira is The Media’s correspondent in New York.