Category: media

“The Administration has launched a broad assault on sexual content that targets the entertainment industry from Hollywood producers to hotels. The offensive includes creation of a Justice Dept. Obscenity Prosecution Task Force and an anti-porn squad at the FBI, a crackdown on indecent programming by the new Federal Communications Commission chairman, and a wave of indecency legislation. The push aims to pressure companies involved in films such as Wedding Crashers, TV shows such as Hot Properties and Nip/Tuck, and soft-core cable porn to tone down or face a backlash. But while Christian conservatives cheer, business is gearing up to take on the Smut Squad.”

The Kaiser Family Foundation has released a study that says that children are exposed to twice as much sexual content on TV as they were seven years ago. “In the slightly more than 1,000 shows scrutinized in the study, nearly 4,000 scenes had sexual content, compared with fewer than 2,000 in 1998, when the foundation started studying TV sex. And yet the rate of teen pregnancy in this country has plunged by about one-third during approximately the same time.”

“A Washington Post analysis of all 92 known proposed indecency fines shows that the agency’s record of policing the airwaves has been undermined by plodding investigations, insufficient fine amounts and inconsistent follow-up.”

The U.S. Senate Commerce Committee plans later this month to hold more hearings on pogramming it feels is “indecent” and to “determine how to proceed on potential legislation to limit such material.”

Classical music irrelevant? Hah! One of the latest reality-TV efforts being pitched to American networks focuses squarely on the appropriately melodramatic world of opera. Think of the possibilities! “Category-5 star fits, backstabbing left and right, failed high notes, plus Pavarotti-esque quantities of food… The proposed scenarios for the show’s first few episodes have [the main character] handling financial problems over long distance, often just before going on stage costumed in the standard Rossini-opera wigs and tights. His 22-year marriage is full of tension. This father of two sons talks about three months at home being ‘way too long. I’m a road guy.'”

Depending on where you sit, public access television (those grainy, amateurish channels on American cable systems that run a seemingly endless stream of school board meetings, religious services, and homemade shows with hosts who often appear to be drunk, disturbed or both) is either a vital method of keeping the airwaves in the hands of the public, or a pointless nuisance which has far outlived its usefulness. “Now, though, the future of the channels deemed ‘electronic soapboxes’ in 1972 by the Federal Communications Commission is uncertain, as proposed legislation about how the telecommunications industry is regulated winds its way through Congress.”

The file-sharing service known as Grokster has thrown in the towel in its battle against the recording industry, which has accused it of facilitating online piracy of copyrighted material. As part of the settlement, Grokster will halt distribution of its software entirely and pay $50 million in damages. It is also acknowledging on its website what everyone already knew: that trading copyrighted music and movies online is illegal. Like Napster before it, Grokster plans to reinvent itself as a legal music download service.

“A Hong Kong man has been jailed for three months for film piracy after he shared movie files over the internet. The authorities say he is the first person in the world to be prosecuted for passing on files using a popular file-sharing program called BitTorrent.”

“Malaysia’s government has been accused of failing to act on evidence that licensed CD factories are producing pirated music, films and software. The country’s recording industry says pirated discs from 12 of the 44 factories licensed by the government have been exported abroad. The suspect plants continue to operate despite complaints while illegal plants have been shut down, the industry says. Malaysia is thought to be the world’s largest exporter of pirated discs.”

“Telemundo, the nation’s No. 2 Spanish-language network, which was bought by NBC three years ago for $2.7 billion, has been unfolding a plan to produce all its own prime-time entertainment instead of buying it from elsewhere. In the process, it is fostering a whole new Spanish-language TV industry, clustered around the city of Miami.”