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CNN Live Today
Smut Police
Aired February 11, 2004 - 10:30 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
DARYN KAGAN, CNN ANCHOR: A live picture from Capitol Hill. The hearing begins. Members are meeting to try to decide how to clean up the airwaves. Many see this as a perfect election year issue. Among those summoned to offer their views, all five members of the Federal Communications Commission. Chairman Michael Powell told the Senate Commerce Committee he considered Janet Jackson's halftime performance at the Super Bowl, quote, "a new low for primetime television."
The cornerstone of the campaign to clean up the airwaves is a proposed critic ten-fold increase in FCC fines to $275,000 per incident.
Ray Richmond is television critic with "The Hollywood Reporter." He's joining us from Los Angeles with his take on how this threat is likely to impact a lot of the popular television shows that we watch. Good morning.
RAY RICHMOND, TELEVISION CRITIC. "THE HOLLYWOOD REPORTER": Good morning, Daryn. How are you?
KAGAN: I'm doing great. This was actually all ago even before Janet Jackson did her little reveal, right?
RICHMOND: Yes. This is just another example of congressman and senators and representatives trying to be politically expedient for their constituents. It has nothing to do with reality. They're trying to legislate morality.
And you can never do that. I mean it seems to me every four or five years, we hear these rumblings of we have to clean up the airwaves. And it always ends up back firing. After two months, the networks end up ignoring them anyway.
KAGAN: But (UNINTELLIGIBLE) I know this isn't just about Janet Jackson, but after the Janet Jackson incident hundreds of thousands of people called Washington to complain. You can't say that those people...
RICHMOND: I haven't met any of these people.
KAGAN: Well just because they're not hanging out in Hollywood with you doesn't mean they don't exist across America. There are people who are honestly offended by that and don't want to be in a situation where they're watching television with their kids and a woman exposes her bare breast. It is a legitimate complaint.
RICHMOND: Perhaps. But I guess it's all the context. It still smacks to me of bull, if you'll pardon the expression. I don't want you guys to get fined $275,000.
(CROSSTALK)
RICHMOND: I won't say the full word.
KAGAN: OK.
RICHMOND: But there's no consistency. Look at the "Sports Illustrated" 40th anniversary issue that's coming out. There's more skin on there than Janet Jackson certainly showed. And that's right there next to the candy for the kiddies.
KAGAN: Right. But there's always been a distinction between airwaves and printed word. Airwaves are considered a limited resource and it has a different standard that they're supposed to meet.
RICHMOND: You see, I don't understand it because HBO you can hear the f-word and see nudity and people having sex. You know, HBO, Showtime, it's all there on the same dial. There's no distinction between free broadcast and over the air cable anymore.
People pay for their television. Almost everybody pays for their television in this country. And just because something is a few ticks to the right on the dial, why should that make such a difference as far as the standard?
KAGAN: The interesting thing that it does to the networks, it puts them in a really tough position. They're losing audience share to the more salacious channels. And they can't go that direction, so they're kind of stuck.
RICHMOND: Precisely. You can't put the genie back in the bottle. These guys, they need to be able to compete with cable. I don't think Janet Jackson's incident, which was probably just a prank from a couple of kids who were misguided, really should be held alongside a full standard that the networks have.
I mean CBS didn't even know this was apparently going to be happening. And yet we're trying to roast them and throw a whole (UNINTELLIGIBLE) into the mix because of it.
I mean I think people need to chill out a little bit. I don't think any child in this country was offended by the Janet Jackson breast incident. Nobody even saw it.
(CROSSTALK)
RICHMOND: I'm the parent of three kids.
KAGAN: Really? And you had no problem with your kids seeing that.
RICHMOND: First off, none of them would have seen it. It was two fleeting seconds of a wide angle shot. And the only time we ended up seeing it was ad infinitum on your network and on every other network since the media got ahold of it. It has nothing to do with who really saw it at the time. It's the backlash after the fact.
So I mean let's be fair here, what was on the air at the time, I would I wager to say no kid in America saw it when it was live on the air at the time
KAGAN: Only afterwards with all the replays?
RICHMOND: Yes, of course.
KAGAN: Ray, thanks for stopping by. We'll be monitoring what happens on Capitol Hill today and the impact on Hollywood. Ray Richmond from "The Hollywood Reporter." Appreciate it.
TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com
Aired February 11, 2004 - 10:30 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
DARYN KAGAN, CNN ANCHOR: A live picture from Capitol Hill. The hearing begins. Members are meeting to try to decide how to clean up the airwaves. Many see this as a perfect election year issue. Among those summoned to offer their views, all five members of the Federal Communications Commission. Chairman Michael Powell told the Senate Commerce Committee he considered Janet Jackson's halftime performance at the Super Bowl, quote, "a new low for primetime television."
The cornerstone of the campaign to clean up the airwaves is a proposed critic ten-fold increase in FCC fines to $275,000 per incident.
Ray Richmond is television critic with "The Hollywood Reporter." He's joining us from Los Angeles with his take on how this threat is likely to impact a lot of the popular television shows that we watch. Good morning.
RAY RICHMOND, TELEVISION CRITIC. "THE HOLLYWOOD REPORTER": Good morning, Daryn. How are you?
KAGAN: I'm doing great. This was actually all ago even before Janet Jackson did her little reveal, right?
RICHMOND: Yes. This is just another example of congressman and senators and representatives trying to be politically expedient for their constituents. It has nothing to do with reality. They're trying to legislate morality.
And you can never do that. I mean it seems to me every four or five years, we hear these rumblings of we have to clean up the airwaves. And it always ends up back firing. After two months, the networks end up ignoring them anyway.
KAGAN: But (UNINTELLIGIBLE) I know this isn't just about Janet Jackson, but after the Janet Jackson incident hundreds of thousands of people called Washington to complain. You can't say that those people...
RICHMOND: I haven't met any of these people.
KAGAN: Well just because they're not hanging out in Hollywood with you doesn't mean they don't exist across America. There are people who are honestly offended by that and don't want to be in a situation where they're watching television with their kids and a woman exposes her bare breast. It is a legitimate complaint.
RICHMOND: Perhaps. But I guess it's all the context. It still smacks to me of bull, if you'll pardon the expression. I don't want you guys to get fined $275,000.
(CROSSTALK)
RICHMOND: I won't say the full word.
KAGAN: OK.
RICHMOND: But there's no consistency. Look at the "Sports Illustrated" 40th anniversary issue that's coming out. There's more skin on there than Janet Jackson certainly showed. And that's right there next to the candy for the kiddies.
KAGAN: Right. But there's always been a distinction between airwaves and printed word. Airwaves are considered a limited resource and it has a different standard that they're supposed to meet.
RICHMOND: You see, I don't understand it because HBO you can hear the f-word and see nudity and people having sex. You know, HBO, Showtime, it's all there on the same dial. There's no distinction between free broadcast and over the air cable anymore.
People pay for their television. Almost everybody pays for their television in this country. And just because something is a few ticks to the right on the dial, why should that make such a difference as far as the standard?
KAGAN: The interesting thing that it does to the networks, it puts them in a really tough position. They're losing audience share to the more salacious channels. And they can't go that direction, so they're kind of stuck.
RICHMOND: Precisely. You can't put the genie back in the bottle. These guys, they need to be able to compete with cable. I don't think Janet Jackson's incident, which was probably just a prank from a couple of kids who were misguided, really should be held alongside a full standard that the networks have.
I mean CBS didn't even know this was apparently going to be happening. And yet we're trying to roast them and throw a whole (UNINTELLIGIBLE) into the mix because of it.
I mean I think people need to chill out a little bit. I don't think any child in this country was offended by the Janet Jackson breast incident. Nobody even saw it.
(CROSSTALK)
RICHMOND: I'm the parent of three kids.
KAGAN: Really? And you had no problem with your kids seeing that.
RICHMOND: First off, none of them would have seen it. It was two fleeting seconds of a wide angle shot. And the only time we ended up seeing it was ad infinitum on your network and on every other network since the media got ahold of it. It has nothing to do with who really saw it at the time. It's the backlash after the fact.
So I mean let's be fair here, what was on the air at the time, I would I wager to say no kid in America saw it when it was live on the air at the time
KAGAN: Only afterwards with all the replays?
RICHMOND: Yes, of course.
KAGAN: Ray, thanks for stopping by. We'll be monitoring what happens on Capitol Hill today and the impact on Hollywood. Ray Richmond from "The Hollywood Reporter." Appreciate it.
TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com
