Howard Stern taken off the air by Clear Channel

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Highland Ranger

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Yahoo news story:

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=796&e=5&u=/eo/20040409/en_celeb_eo/13870

I am not a fan, in fact just the opposite - his humor escapes me and he often goes way over the line.

However, I am a fan of the free market - if you don't like the guy, boycott the advertisers, don't listen or do whatever you want. That's the way to make him go away.

But getting the government involved and the government being able to be involved is just plain scary.

Between erosion of the the 2nd and 4th and now meddling in the 1st, how far off are we from a police state?
 
Quoted from the article:
Proving that they are ready and willing to play hardball, FCC commissioners recommended the maximum fine of $27,000 for each of 18 allegedly indecent remarks made during an April 2003 broadcast of the Stern show.
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Does it worry anyone else that the FCC waited for a YEAR to levy these fines? Does it seem to anyone else that they just file them all away and wait untill the political climate is appropriate to say "heck, look at all these fines we got here".

How much would it suck if suddenly someone came up to you and said "hey we just reviewed everything you have done in your life, for the various petty crimes you have commited (to include the matress tag thing) we are adding it all up to 10years in prison, have a nice day).
 
I'm just glad Colin Powell is a little more open minded and respectful than his cousin Michael. This Michael Powell seems to like a Draconian Stste.

Politics, politics, politics.

What ever happen to free speech. If someone is offended by Stern, move the dial, there is more than enough right wing talk radio for them to listen to.
 
The FCC can't regulate the satellite or cable TV content. We will end up in a country where free air broadcast is all religous programming and all of the entertainment content will be on the satellite and cable channels.
 
How much would it suck if suddenly someone came up to you and said "hey we just reviewed everything you have done in your life, for the various petty crimes you have commited (to include the matress tag thing) we are adding it all up to 10years in prison, have a nice day).
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Or worse, imagine if they nailed you for all the traffic infractions you had committed while driving. That would probably exceed the national debt.... at least, in my case.
 
Hey, easy with that "right wing" talk Angus! :neener:


While I may be a conservative-libertarian (or perhaps a libertarian-conservative, depending upon your point of view) I definitely do not endorse the Federal Government's involvement in policing the First Amendment, because hearing someone say something with which you passionately disagree is the price we pay for free speech. I'm against censorship in any way, shape, or form.
 
I found a poll yesterday on a computer website that had a question and three choices. To the best of my memory...


Should Howard Stern be kicked off the air?

1: No he's great.

2: Yes he's disgusting.

3: Don't care.


How the heck are questions one and two relevant to anything? :banghead:
 
dustind, what do you expect from the media? Of course they're going to ask biased questions. If they offered:

1. No, the howard stern show is protected speech
2. Yes, the howard stern show is not protected speech
3. I don't know whether the show is protected speech or not

They'd get hundreds, thousands, maybe tens of thousands of people thinking about the 1st amendment! The media can't have people thinking for themselves about the constitution! Who knows what might happen! They might stop depending on the media for all their other information! And when that happens, people stop paying attention to radio and TV, advertising revenue goes down, and mega-media-conglomerate-corporations see lower revenue. Not good! Keep the citizens dumb, reactionary, emotional, and in line with the mainstream! Keep them buying advertisers' products!
 
I am in a position where Howard is the ONLY show available for a fair amount of time when i am stuck in a car. Even still i have OFTEN found myself listening to crappy 'top 40' music instead. Im not a huge fan, but he certainly should be allowed to broadcast. I dont have any trouble changing the station. I really can't imagine that anyone else would suffer from such an inability.
 
Howard knew what the FCC rules were. His employers knew what the pre-existing rules were.

He does not have my sympathy because he is trying to claim its his political speech that is getting him in trouble, where everyone who has heard his show knows otherwise.
 
Unfortunately, by some of these recent moves re: "pornography", the Bush administration is convincing some people that the initial fears were justified. These are foolish policy decisions, IMHO. It will hurt, not help him. Disappointing.

Regards from TX
 
Howard knew what the FCC rules were. His employers knew what the pre-existing rules were.
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No, the problem is they change the rules all the time. It's not like he said one of the 7 dirty words. Like Bono did, for example. Except the FCC said that was OK -- no fine for saying F### on live TV. Stern talks in code, and they fine him millions.
 
Hey all you Bush bashers. The pres had nothing to do with this, christ don't you people know anything about the goverment. It was congress that brought pressure to bare on the FCC. Democrat & republican.
As far as the free speech & erosion of are rights are concerned the rules have been in place for years, but after the Janet fiasco a whole lot of people got really pissed off. According to all the ranting lunatics on this page we should be able to have hardcore porn on abc cbs or nbc because its free speech.
 
Howard knew what the FCC rules were. His employers knew what the pre-existing rules were.
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Howard has been on, doing what he is doing for what, over 20 years?

Why fine him now?

Check out his web site: http://www.howardstern.com

On the front page he does a comparison of an Oprah transcript and his show. He actually played the Oprah clip on his show and got bleeped out.

What do you think the chances are that Oprah will get fined off the air? (she was not bleeped by the network)

He goes further to show one of the clips the FCC fined him for - not much worse than the Oprah clip that she did not get fined for.

But that's right, I forgot, this is America - African American woman . . . . does whatever she wants right?

Jewish white guy . . . . . hmmmm . . . . well we know what to do with him - put him out of business.

Again, I have listened to this guy maybe a half dozen times either by accident or out of curiousity in the 20+ years he has been on. I do not like him, his humor is childish and not particularly imaginative. I work with funnier guys.

BUT, this is not the way. The FCC decency crap should be thrown out the window - let the MARKET decide who get's on and who doesn't.

I guarantee you'd have better programming and an intact first amendment.

Don't let your dislike of this man cloud your judgement regarding what is going on here . . . . . and be concerned.
 
Lots of issues and side-issues here. The federal government made an unconstitutional grab in the first place by commandeering the public airwaves and placing them under their exclusive domain. There are so many things the federal government does that the Constitution doesn't permit, but that's best saved for another thread, or should I say potentially thousands of threads. What a shame the federal government doesn't stick to it's primary role as spelled out in the Constitution:the defense of our nation. Yeah, Howard knew the rules going in, they're as plain as mud, and at best seldom/selectively enforced. These sudden acts of piety on behalf of the government are a knee jerk reaction to Janet Jackson's breast being exposed on the Super Bowl half-time show. Now they must show the offended parties that the government is here to help.
 
So Clear Channel no longer has the right to determine who broadcasts on their equipment? The FCC didn't kick Stern off the air. As far as I know, he's still on the air. Clear Channel fired him. They have every right to do so. The 1st Amendment does not guarantee you the right to use someone else's equipment to make your voice heard. Get over it people. Clear Channel could have kicked him off their stations for any reason...or none at all. Their property, their rules.
 
I don't care for censorship, even on the public airwave. I think the FCC should merely handle frequencies, doing stuff like combating pirate stations and making sure stations aren't competing on the same wavelength.

However, I won't shed a tear for Howard Stern. The guy is a tool, who knowingly and flagrantly flaunted the FCC's rules. I'm troubled by censorship, but I'm glad the classic rock station in my town is playing... ROCK MUSIC... instead of the fecal matter that passes for his show.

EDIT:

True, fix. But the FCC did kind of show him the door by laying out some big fines and implicitly promising more.
 
Highland Ranger
Those 2 transcripts are as similar as calling Richard by his nickname and using the same word for his penis. His show and station do their own censoring so they can censor the word THE if they want.
There is no Gov't censor standing over them waiting to hit a bleep button.
And if it is bleeped it has been edited,
With that said as far as I'm concerned Stern has been off the air for years now. I couldn't wait for him to get here after he did I also found him to be extremely juvenile and unfunny.
The FCC should just let him go. They do more to promote him than anything else if there was no controversy over his program it would go the way of "Bush Country".
 
I just re-read the thread, and I didn't see anyone say that Clear Channel doesn't have the right to make its own programming decisions. Clearly that's not the question.

The question is this: does the federal government have the right to decide that Howard Stern should not be allowed to work at Clear Channel? Does it have the right to decide that Howard Stern should lose his biggest broadcast partner, but that Oprah Winfrey and Bono should be allowed to do worse things on daytime and prime-time television, respectively?

Bono dropped an F-bomb and the FCC decided that was OK because it was used as an adjective! In essence, you can say
"I hope that (effin') cloud doesn't drop any (effin') rain on my (effin') head or I'm gonna be (effin') mad at that (effin') Bush for causing rain with his (effin') environmental (effin') policies."
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Although it is both foul and stupid, this sort of statement fulfills the two main criteria the FCC accepts as mitigation for foul language and sexual content in the media:

1. The F-word was used only as an adjective, never as a verb or noun, and

2. The speaker clearly indicated that he is a politically active liberal with an interest in a PC cause.
 
I wonder if Janet Jackson's hooter had been more...presentable and not looked like something from a horror film, would that have made a difference. Seriously, though. Stern has been over the line for decades. It just took one incident to raise the bar back to where it had previously been. Plus, Stern is a smart guy. He could have a political show and do "fine."
 
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