The Federal Communications Commission has released its latest broadcasting indecency complaint statistics, and as usual they are a roller coaster affair. In the first quarter of 2008, the number of complaints for "indecency/obscenity" shot up to 108,919 in January, then dropped to 10,825 in February, then collapsed to 1,187 in March. In the second quarter of the year, April's stats briefly rose again to 24,068, then fell to 679 and 311, respectively, in May and June.
This repeats the wildly fluctuating pattern of the last three years, when complaints have risen from 179 to over 160,000 in a matter of months.
These numbers stand in stark contrast to the FCC's stats for "general criticism" (whatever that means), which tend to stay constant from month to month. In the first three months of 2008, for example, they came out at 193, 487, and 270.
And so, once again, Ars wonders whether the agency's indecency/obscenity statistics reflect spontaneous viewer response to the level of erotic/linguistic friskiness on TV or solely on the power of coordinated campaigns launched by groups like the Parents Television Council. It's time for the FCC to more fully disclose the nature of these complaints, answering at least the following three questions.
1. How many come from web auto-forms?
When a public interest group launches a web campaign around some issue like the Universal Service Fund, net neutrality, or media ownership, the proceeding database shows that the tens of thousands of comments the FCC has received on this issue come from some auto-form. Often the agency combines these comments into a single PDF file.
In the case of indecency stats, all the latest survey says is that the counts "may include duplicate complaints or contacts that subsequently are determined insufficient to constitute actionable complaints."
As Ars has reported, the FCC used to log indecency dupes as a single "consolidated complaint," then stopped doing that, possibly in response to protests from various morals groups. Fine, but how many repeaters are we talking about here? And how many of these complaints were subsequently determined to be bogus?
2. Who filed these complaints?
Given that a broadcaster is now potentially liable for $325,000 if the FCC determines that it aired a single fleeting expletive, and given that the agency reserves the right to impose this fine on the basis of a single complaint, it seems reasonable to make public in the agency's reports an appendix containing the identities of these complainers and the content of their grievances.
After all, the identities of everybody who files in any FCC-related proceeding are always revealed. Many of those filings charge companies with various wrongdoings. Why not here?
3. Did the complainer actually see/hear the program?
As I've argued before, it's time for the FCC indecency web form to ask complainers to certify that they have actually viewed or listened to the show that they are protesting. The form should, at minimum, include a check box next to a line that says something like this: "By clicking this box to the left, I certify that I personally saw or heard the program in the time and location mentioned, and about which I am filing this complaint."
Sure, some people might lie and say they saw or heard the show when they did not. But plenty would be honest enough to abstain from checking that box. The FCC's stats should indicate the quality as well as the quantity of these protests.
There are other details that the FCC leaves out of these stats, like how many gripes it thinks fall into the "obscenity," "indecency," and "profanity" categories. These are not minor distinctions. The agency defines obscene material as completely beyond the protection of the First Amendment, while indecent and profane fare can be broadcast during the Commission's "safe harbor" hours, between 10pm and 6am, local time.
But the bottom line is that the Commission's statistical reports should reveal to what extent its indecency/obscenity/profanity complaint rates are generated by, in FCC Chair Kevin Martin's own words, "groups that help organize" feedback to "policymakers who are here in Washington." Such groups certainly have a right to organize pressure campaigns, but when they do so, broadcasters, regulators, and the public have the right to know about it.