FOX Tells The FCC To F**k Off
If you or I told the IRS or some other federal agency to f**k off and that we will not do what they say, we would probably end up in jail. But what happens when a company or in this case a huge television network and film studio says f**k off to an arm of the federal government?
The reason for the outburst by FOX is the FCC fined 13 Fox-owned stations and affiliates $7,000 each for a 2003 episode of the now-defunct reality show Married by America that featured a bachelor party in which naked participants were shown with their breasts and asses blurred out by pixels. Although the commission held that the pixelation made the scene "less explicit and graphic," than it would have been otherwise, it nevertheless found that "the material is still sufficiently graphic and explicit to support an indecency finding."
What FOX said is that if you throw a pixel up, then there is nothing wrong with showing whatever you want. Look, I am the kind of guy who will watch anything and I really don't care what is shown on television. However, if I show you two people having full on sex but pixel out the privates, would you consider it indecent? I think it would be. I don't think using a pixel makes something automatically decent.
FOX however has refused to pay the fine. If it were some tiny television station, the FCC could threaten to pull their license and the station would probably back down. But there is no way that the FCC is going to pull the licenses of all those FOX owned stations. It isn't going to happen. They give way too much money and would make sure they kept them. BUT, if they don't pay them are they setting a bad precedent? What's to stop all the other huge media conglomerates from saying they won't pay? They then can show whatever the hell they want and tell the FCC to shove it. Then, it starts to trickle down and the CEO's of the companies start telling the IRS to shove it and don't pay taxes and it just goes on and on and on until you have anarchy.
All from one stupid reality show that no one watched. Just pay the fine. Take it out of Seacrest's pay. He should be fined anyway for all those damn shows he is putting on E! anyway.
