According to Patricia Hirl Longstaff, an associate television, radio and film professor, it isn’t.

‘There’s a specific law that prohibits any type of obscenity,’ said Longstaff, who teaches a course in communications law. ‘I’d assume the (Federal Communications Commission) would enforce that to a letter.’

Longstaff should know – she served 20 years as a communications lawyer prior to joining the Syracuse University teaching staff.

‘Obscenity has never been a problem in broadcasting,’ she said.

Instead, the legal issue lies in decency. Or perhaps more appropriately, indecency.

‘You have indecent speech which isn’t obscene in the classical definition,’ Longstaff said. ‘There are famous words broadcast doesn’t use.’

Those words are the seven that were made famous by comedian George Carlin’s ‘Seven Words You Can’t Say On TV’ routine, which were banned because of their sexual connotations. Those words, according to Carlin, are shit, piss, fuck, cunt, cocksucker, motherfucker and tits.

‘Generally networks don’t use those seven,’ Longstaff said. ‘But they will use words like ‘hell.’ The rest they usually stay away from.’

There are times when networks have used these forbidden words, most notably during ABC’s ‘NYPD Blue’ and live broadcasts of award shows. The punishment, however, often varies.

‘The FCC has sort of cut (the networks) some slack because cable channels get to use them,’ Longstaff said. ‘The FCC has gone back and forth with how they deal with it because of cable.’

Longstaff said viewers are often confused by the legality of certain indecencies because production companies willingly pay fines if the usage is successful for the broadcast.

‘Howard Stern leaps to mind,’ Longstaff said. ‘The FCC has fined the company that distributes his show a million times. But they make more money on the show paying the fine. It’s sort of the cost of doing business, which leads a lot of people to believe that it’s legal. But it’s not.’

In 1995, the FCC fined Infinity Broadcasting $1.5 million for various infractions related to Stern’s show – it was the highest fine ever awarded by the commission. Most recently, the FCC made headlines for promising to investigate Janet Jackson’s breast-baring Super Bowl Halftime performance, which Longstaff said will most likely be punished with a hefty fine.

‘If you took a poll of 100 judges, you would probably get 99 out of 100 to say that that was indecent,’ she said. ‘It has nothing to do with topless women. You can see broadcasts of famous nude paintings. It’s all the context in which it is shown.’

Within the past few weeks, in order to cut back on violations of indecency, the FCC asked networks to self-regulate. FOX quickly reacted by running disclaimers before many of its shows which encourage parents to utilize V-Chips.

‘If you were FOX and the FCC was making noises, that could stop you (from running indecent content),’ Longstaff said. ‘Or you could encourage people to use the V-Chip, even though you know they won’t.’

And as long as the FCC accepts this self-regulation, don’t expect FOX to change its content.

‘You do make money with sex, everyone knows that,’ Longstaff said. ‘American adults have a constitutional right to see indecent content if they choose.’

Published on February 25, 2004 at 12:00 pm