Government Overregulation of Broadcast Content Could Backfire
Rush is right! The government's stepped up bid to regulate
broadcast television content is indeed frightening. Limbaugh
made his comments during one of his regular radio broadcasts
last year. Those remarks were in response to the FCC's crackdown
on broadcast indecency and Congress' threats to hand out much
larger fines to broadcasters for such violations, in the wake of
Janet Jackson's "wardrobe malfunction" at the Super Bowl
halftime show last February. Limbaugh is the not only media
personality alarmed by this intensified government scrutiny of
television content. At the beginning of his news program on CNN
during that same time frame, Aaron Brown said he thought the
only thing worse than Jackson's Super Bowl debacle is the fact
that the government is now getting involved in trying to prevent
similar incidents in the future. Amen, Aaron! Television, like
any other business in a capitalistic society like ours, is and
should be governed by the marketplace and the laws of supply and
demand. I would love to see more family-friendly television
programming. However, if there were truly a great demand for it,
there would naturally be a lot more of it in existence (as well
as a lot less of the offensive stuff). The folks who are pushing
the hardest for greater government intervention to make TV more
family-friendly will assert that they are in the majority of
viewers and listeners in the U.S. However, the facts belie this
assertion. Of the seven broadcast networks, PAX, widely
recognized as the most family-friendly, is last in the ratings.
It's not just last, it is dead last! PAX gets about one-fourth
of the audience of the sixth place network! Even in places that
don't have a local PAX affiliate, it is usually available as a
cable channel. However, it's not even among the 30 top-rated
cable channels. On the other hand, some of the TV shows and
cable networks with the most controversial material get the
highest ratings. Go figure. In reality, those who are clamoring
the loudest for TV to "clean up its act" know they are in the
minority. Instead of tuning their TVs to PAX or one of the other
tamer channels (as I do) or even turning their TVs completely
off, they go running to the government to force their tastes on
everyone else. Oddly enough, most of these people consider
themselves conservatives. Funny, I thought conservatives
disdained government intervention in favor of allowing the
marketplace to take its course. Where did I ever get such a
silly idea? What these people seemingly don't realize is that
their efforts could very well backfire on them and all the rest
of us. Broadcasters have generally submitted to the concepts of
the V-chip and content ratings to help parents regulate their
children