Howard Stern

Goodbye Good Programming

When one thinks of original, successful radio shows in the U.S., one show definitely comes to mind, Howard Stern. The Howard Stern morning radio show has been the most successful radio show on the radio for some time now. Howard Stern created a show unlike any other; it is a morning radio show that has it all. The show has interviews with famous people, listeners can call in to the show with there opinions, current news, and most notably its sexual content and controversial opinions on what is happening in the world we live in. The show has always pushed the limits of freedom of speech while at the same time opened new doors and ideas within the limits. Currently in our country this show has become under fire by our government and is very close to being taken off the airwaves. This is just one show that is in jeopardy of being taken off the air.

Recently our government through its administrative agency for communications, the FCC, has decided to send a message to the corporate media to clean up their broadcasts. The FCC defines indecency as:

1. An average person, applying contemporary community standards, must find that the material, as a whole, appeals to the prurient interest.

2. The material must depict or describe, in a patently offensive way, sexual conduct specifically defined by applicable law.

3. The material, taken as a whole, must lack serious literary, artistic, political, or scientific value.

The fine for broadcast indecency has been raised to $275,000.00 from $27,500.00 per instance. The problem that has arisen from this new interest in cleaning up broadcasts to protect the general public from being exposed to this indecency is that some of our best programming is in jeopardy. There are some huge corporations behind this programming such as Time Warner, Viacomm, Clear Channel, etc. these corporations are becoming concerned that the government is starting to focus attention on how big they have become and how much power they have to control the media.

Unfortunately, because of this new motivation to control our programming to the FCCЃfs liking one avenue of our freedom of speech is being taken away from us. The public programming we currently have is perfectly acceptable and almost to conservative. ItЃfs not like we have one TV or radio station that everyone is forced to watch. If you donЃft like what your watching or listening to you can just change the channel or turn it off. There are also a lot of parental controls available that prevent kids from watching shows of adult content but ultimately it is the parents responsibility to monitor and control what they want their children to watch or listen to. I think the government is over stepping there bounds here and trying to control what our society is consuming from the media.

At the same time I feel corporate media is almost a monopoly. There