IP Democracy: Redstone Rails Against Government Censorship

I just got back from one of DC’s swankiest affairs, The Media Institute’s annual Friends & Benefactors Awards Banquet, held at the Four Seasons in Georgetown. The three guests of honor were new FCC Commissioner Robert M. McDowell, marking his first (well, almost first) public speaking engagement since assuming his position, Time Warner Cable CEO Glenn Britt, who won the Institute’s American Horizon Award and Viacom Chairman Sumner Redstone, who won the Freedom of Speech Award.

Redstone’s speech was the highlight of the evening. He railed at the “censorship” imposed on broadcasters when TV stations are fined for violating the Commission’s indecency regulations. In the wake of Janet Jackson’s Super Bowl half-time incident, the FCC has stepped up its enforcement of indency violations and ramped up the fines owed.

Redstone said

Unfortunately, we find ourselves in a world where, increasingly and alarmingly, a couple thousand form complaints from people condemning shows that they have never watched can result in an indecency fine ten times higher than it was a year ago.

Redstone ticked off what he considered both Viacom’s and CBS’ high quality programs and movies (via Paramount), but said he would defend the right of others to produce less lofty content.

Another Supreme Court Justice Robert H. Jackson, who incidentally was chief prosecutor at the Nuremberg trials, once said, “The price of freedom of religion, or of speech, or of the press, is that we must put up with a good deal of rubbish.” As a responsible media executive — and more importantly, a parent and grandparent - I have no intention of pushing rubbish, but I defend others’ freedom to create what some, including me, might not like.

In his keynote speech, FCC Commissioner McDowell made very clear that he is a staunch free-market Republican. “The private sector at least deserves a foster parent” at the FCC, he said. His first act at the Commission was to enable anti-communist Radio Marti to better reach Cuban shores. (Shortly thereafter, Fidel Castro fell ill, McDowell joked.)

He doesn’t seem to be as much a free-marketeer when it comes to cracking down on TV obscenity and indecency. “In the absence of self-regulation, government regulation will fill the vacuum,” McDowell said.

Time Warner Cable’s Britt said little on policy matters but much about the business of cable. “This is the most exciting time to be in the cable business since I joined it,” Britt said. The Internet is clearly creating a lot of new opportunities and the possibilities are vast and unpredictable. “I don’t think anybody knows where the Internet is really headed.”

Posted by Cynthia Brumfield on October 17, 2006 12:03 AM to IP Democracy