Court puts on Hold FCC ruling on TV Profanity

COURT PUTS HOLD ON FCC RULING ON TV PROFANITY
[SOURCE: Reuters, AUTHOR: Jeremy Pelofsky]
The Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit put on hold the Federal Communications Commission's ruling that four television broadcasts of profanity violated decency standards. The Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit stayed enforcement of the agency's ruling in March that profanities uttered on ABC's "NYPD Blue," CBS's "The Early Show" and the 2002 and 2003 Billboard music awards shows on Fox were indecent. The FCC did not propose any fines for the incidents. The four major television networks, ABC, CBS, Fox and NBC, argued the FCC's rulings were unconstitutional, arbitrary and capricious and asked the appeals court in New York to throw them out.
"It cuts the heart out of the FCC's strengthened enforcement effort for the time being," said Andrew Schwartzman, president and chief executive of the Media Access Project, a consumer advocacy group. The FCC now gets two months to reconsider the profanities uttered on ABC's "NYPD Blue," CBS's "The Early Show" and the 2002 and 2003 Billboard music awards shows on Fox.
http://today.reuters.com/news/newsArticle.aspx?type=televisionNews&storyID=2006-09-07T145347Z_01_N07245702_RTRIDST_0_TELEVISION-MEDIA-DECENCY-CO...

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