Who decides what's indecent on cable, late night?

The Federal Communications Commission has 1.45 million pending indecency complaints and 12,049 open cases. But many of the complaints are directed at cable networks and other content outside of the FCC's jurisdiction.

As many as 7,000 of those cases could be directed at political or racial content, as well as violent programming or material that aired on late-night broadcast channels or on cable networks. The FCC defines indecency as sexual or excretory material that does not rise to the level of obscenity. The material must also be "patently offensive" under current community standards. In determining indecency, the FCC looks at whether the material is explicit or graphic, whether it dwells on sexual or excretory activity or depictions, and whether it was made to pander, titillate or shock. These rules only apply to programming appearing on broadcast networks from 6 a.m. to 10 p.m. All other content is not subject to the FCC's indecency enforcement.

The program that is keeping the FCC most busy is Fox's animated sitcom "Family Guy." A March 2009 episode alone generated almost 200,000 complaints.