Federal Communications Commission v. Fox Television Stations, Inc.

FCC v. Fox Television Stations, Inc
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 The Federal communication Commission FCC is a government agency whose responsibility is regulation of radio and television stations airwaves. The agency has expanded greatly by regulating indecency, which has its origin from FCC. There are several broadcasters that have sought the review of the FCC policies presenting the Supreme Court with challenges to the FCC regulatory powers over the airwave for several decades (Barron, 2012). This essay will examine the incident of FCC v. Fox Stations Inc. by evaluating the legal background and the position of FCC and respondents in determining whether the new policy is overly vague and afoul to the first and fifth amendment, and because all broadcasters needs to operate free of almost any restrictions on their content. Fox television Inc. had appealed with respect to the FCC’s ruling of the indecency policy which is perceived as subjective and unpredictable.
The second circuit of FCC was rejected by the Supreme Court due to impermissible vagueness of its policy. The case was returned to the Supreme Court to determine the authority of FCC to regulate instances of nudity and expletive use. The decision of the Supreme Court will affect the contents of a broadcaster to be aired during the day and primetime programming. There have been Questions raised to determine whether the supreme court erred in validating findings by FCC that broadcasters were including indecency to the meaning of statutory and regulation prohibitions(Houska, 2012). The issue in this case is to determine whether the FCC new indecency policy is overly vague and runs afoul of the first and fifth amendments.
The FCC is empowered by the federal law to regulate the indecency and disrespectful language, and to fine broadcasters who violate the indecency prohibition. The agency has enforced actions that regulate indecency through issuing policy statements aimed at clarifying the industry’s regulation standards of indecent speech. There are subsequent ensuing enforcement actions that the FCC has considered to confirm passing regarding the use of profanity that is presumptively indecent (Barron, 2012). Therefore, the conclusion of the commission policy change with respect to the second circuit regarding FCC was arbitrary and unpredictable of the administrative procedure Act. The second circuit found that the FCC’s failed to justify the evident abandonment of its previous policy which permitted fleeting expletives (Barron, 2012).
Although The Supreme Court ruled that FCC could regulate broadcast programmers to provide viewers with profanity free content, the institution of the new policy by FCC was found to be vague and unconstitutional in its entirety. The FCC was disputing that the new indecency policy does not violate the first and fifth amendments as applied or on the face to the broadcast at issues of the case. Fox television on the hand argued that the FCC’s new policy could not pass the scrutiny of the constitution because FCC did not have substantial interest in protecting offensive programs to children, and because the policy does not provide the use of restrictive means to ban offensive content.
The FCC’s new policy standards and its order in finding the fox television at issue that is actionably indecent were neither arbitrary nor unpredictable. This is because the agency had in the first place acknowledged that the action it took stand, had broken new ground as fox television took into account on inconsistency of prior actions, and explicitly disowning them as to no longer be considered good law (Barron, 2012). The agency therefore, reasoned to expand its activities of enforcement which were entirely rational. FCC in its reasoning perceived the ‘F’ word having the power to offend and insult, as it is derived from its sexual meaning even when it is used as expletive. The patent offensiveness decision was to look even to isolated cases that used sexual and excretory words, which fits with the pacificas content based approach (Weil, 2008). The FCC prior approach of safe-harbor-for-single-word had the likelihood of extending the use of the words and in the cost of advanced technology that is significantly reducing the use of bleeping words that are offensive.
On the other hand of FCC instituting new indecency policy, the agency stepped forward from its old regime, and although its decision was not aimed at imposing sanctions, it can be argued that it is arbitrary punishing parties without notice prior to their actions and potential penalty (Newman, 2003). This is because none of the second circuit’s ground that found the FCC’s actions to be arbitrary and capricious that is valid. Although the FCC does not at any time required to provide an empirical evidence to prove fleeting exple...