C-SPAN To Air Profanity Arguments Live

C-SPAN said Monday it has decided to provide live coverage of the oral argument in broadcasters challenge to the FCC's profanity crackdown.

C-SPAN asked and gotten permission from the Second Circuit Court of Appeals in New York to cover the Dec. 20 arguments, one of the more amenable to TV coverage.

The arguments in five cases are scheduled to begin at 10 a.m., with lawyers in the case not sure where they will fall in the queue but, because they have a senior judge on the three-judge panel, they were hoping for first in line.

C-SPAN Radio will also carry the live coverage and it will be streamed on the Web site, cspan.org.

C-SPAN will have to be flexible about the coveage. According to the office of Carter Phillips, managing partner of Sibley Austin, who is arguing the case for Fox, each side has been given 20 minutes, but the court may not post when that total 40 minutes will be scheduled during the day until Tuesday or even the morning of the hearing.

C-SPAN will also repeat the arguments at 9:15 Wednesday night, and again on Saturday at 7 p.m..

John Eggerton

Contributing editor John Eggerton has been an editor and/or writer on media regulation, legislation and policy for over four decades, including covering the FCC, FTC, Congress, the major media trade associations, and the federal courts. In addition to Multichannel News and Broadcasting + Cable, his work has appeared in Radio World, TV Technology, TV Fax, This Week in Consumer Electronics, Variety and the Encyclopedia Britannica.