Networks Back to Obscenity Court
By John Eggerton -- Broadcasting & Cable, 2/4/2008
Fox, joined by CBS and ABC, has asked the Supreme Court not to review a lower-court decision that essentially took the FCC to the woodshed for failing to justify its crackdown on fleeting profanity.
Fox and CBS have been together from the beginning of the challenge, but ABC stepped away after the commission rescinded the profanity finding against it for swearing in NYPD Blue.
But with the FCC's $1.4 million fine for non-fleeting nudity in that same show two weeks ago, ABC in the past few days decided to rejoin the court challenge, according to a source familiar with the filing.
In the brief, filed with the court on Feb.1, Fox and friends argue that the Second Circuit Court of Appeals got it right when it concluded that the FCC had "failed to provide a reasoned basis for reversing its long-standing indecency enforcement policy with respect to isolated and fleeting expletives."
