Client Alert
Telecommunications Alert: FCC Affirms and Elaborates Indecency Fine Against NYPD Blue Telecast
February 21, 2008
The Federal Communications Commission has issued a Forfeiture Order that further explains the bases for its recent decision to assess a record indecency fine against 52 ABC television affiliates for having aired an episode of "NYPD Blue" in February, 2003.
Last month, the Commission proposed fining each affiliate $27,500 for having aired an opening scene which depicted a young boy entering a bathroom where his mother had disrobed for a shower. Several shots displayed the woman's bare back and buttocks, as well as a flash of the side of her breast. Oppositions were filed both by the ABC network and by its affected affiliates. In rejecting their contentions, the FCC bolstered with further reasoning its prior decision that had applied its traditional indecency test to the episode in question.
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