So that whole second and a half of nudity scarred the minds of an entire generation of children that were watching an inherently violent sport for entertainment?
Only if you regularly keep your kids locked up in a soundproof unlit closet, to prevent inadvertent exposure to “indecent materials,” I suppose.
Can you give any reason why a breast should be considered “indecent” in the first place?
The very fact that people consider female breasts to be “indecent” is absurd, sexist, and should not have any basis in law.
You guys are missing the real conspiracy here. I think Bush may have taken a page from Clinton’s book and reworked it. What we have here is a domestic sexual scandal designed to distract us from a foriegn military action. 
BTW,
Very nice! Wasn’t Ms. Jackson spanked several times during the routine?
And just why hasn’t Bush called in Bill Clinton to investigate this? He’ll get to the bottom of Nipplegate faster than anyone!
For a live feed it’s kinda unmanageable in Real World terms, isn’t it? Anyone carrying a live feed must place it on delay and have a live and alert person ready to pull the plug at all times? You’re right, CBS would have a big suit from its affiliates – one essentially commanded upon them by the FCC, as the only way they have to intervene with the producers of content.
All joking aside, Mtgman nailed this in one. Everybody in broadcasting knows damn well what they are allowed to do and what they are not. This ridiculous display clearly violates FCC rules, the rules all of the stations agreed to, so that they could broadcast. Don’t like the rules? Lobby to have them changed. Until then, you are bound by your agreement, and will be fined if you break it.
The FCC is actually sometimes reasonable about this, per their pass on Bono’s f-bomb during the Golden Globes. These guys, otoh, deliberately violated the rules, planned it in advance, in the expectation that they’d reap the benefits financially down the road in higher ratings or album sales.
If you decide ahead of time to violate the rules, knowing that a fine is waiting for you, I’m more than happy to give you the highest fine the violation allows. I know the individual stations didn’t actually decide on this, but they’re the only ones the FCC has an agreement with, let them sue CBS, Viacom, MTV, Justin and Janet for their money back.
DSeid didn’t call it “indecent”; he/she just said they want to be the one who decides if their kid sees nudity. Who do you propose should get to decide if DSeid’s kids see nudity?
That’s what radio, especially talk radio, does.
I think that’s bureaucratic speak for “skin to win”.
I’m not a parent or a prude. Still, I can’t help but think that someone needs to slap some taste and talent into our “entertainers” today. I usually find myself in dispose when the entertainment comes on. I’m really not as old as all that sounded. I liked early rap in my teens: GMFFF, Sugarhill G, etc.
As stupid as this was – and it was very stupid and tasteless – it does highlight our overreaction to boobage as compared to real problems that cause real injuries or deaths.
However, as noted, wrong time and wrong place. Moreover, whatever “message that sent”* to people already a little messed up in the head will be determined later.
As for $$$. I don’t think this “investigation” will cost much. I’m sure they already have long distance service, a VCR, and a DVD. Make sure you can pause both of them and still see clearly.
*I hate that expression. But everyone seems to know what it means.
I never even noticed it when I watched. I heard about it later, and then I had to see it to believe it.
Like I heard on Jay Leno last night:
“We’ll investigate Janet’s breast immediately, but you’ll hear about the intelligence investigation sometime next year”…
lol 
scowls
Do not mock my sweetie. He may have crap music, but I think he’s cute. :mad:
I’m much more partial to Toby Keith/Fame-era Joey Faton types. Timberlake always puts me in mind of someone who still has to have his mother sign permission slips to let him go on tour. Which is one reason I found the whole sexing-Miss-Jackson-up thing so utterly giggleworthy.
and his dancers. Justin Timberlake, you have arrived. Please leave.
[sub]The “performer” hereby amends his standard contract to include “topless dancers” unless any biznitch has shit to say.[/sub]
Having carefully reviewed the evidence – without having TiVo – both blurred and unblurred – I think Janet Jackson and Justin made a big mistake.
Did people check into the local topless ordinances regarding the requisite nipple coverings? Licensing, zoning, all that will come up to bite them in the ass depending on whether the lawyers feel like playing nice or making an example.
I’m not making crap like that up, and it varies from jurisdiction to jurisdiction.
Like it or not, the FCC does not allow boobage for the most part – unless it’s natives or from 200 years ago. Sometimes black and white film is good enough.
NOBODY expects [sub]the Spanish Inquisiton[/sub] a real boob shot at halftime in the Super Bowl by a major performer.
Investigation over, settlement imminent.
Well, I think it may be a little early to say they DID deliberately violate the rules. I believe that determination is the point of the investigation. Other than that, we’re in agreement. The FCC is willing to overlook unintentional infractions, especially if they are isolated incidents. Plus they don’t actively monitor all stations all the time for infractions. They are very re-active instead of pro-active. As a result they only do investigations after actual allegations have been filed and they have a responsibility to the aggrieved party to look into the matter.
All kinds of stuff can get you fined, but routinely doesn’t because either no one complains, or they realize that stuff happens which is not reasonably preventable. Failure to do station identification once an hour is an infraction, but they understand if someone just flubs it once in a while. The fines can get pretty steep though. They kept a chart of the fines for various infractions in the control booth at the station when I was working as a DJ. Kept us honest in case we ever decided to flip on the mic and rip off a string of obscenities to know that each obscenity weighed in at $7,500. Repeat offenders aren’t shown much mercy.
If there is a conspiracy here the suits may be banking on the FCC being forgiving of a situation out of the suits control. Still, even if it is a live performer acting totally on their own the FCC reserves the right to fine the crap out of the stations for not preventing it or booking more trustworthy performers. Even if the suits are exhonerated as far as a conspiracy goes, they could still be fined for not preventing it.
A couple of other points. It is common practice, for exactly these reasons, for live sessions to be delayed in the studio for several seconds for some quick operator to be able to bleep or blur or worst case scenario throw up the “technical difficulties” screen. I’d be suprised if they had such a practice for the superbowl or most network programming because they’re supposed to be able to trust it, but live news events and other “live” coverage often isn’t really live. They don’t want some asshole jumping in front of the camera and pulling a goatse(please don’t ask, just rest assured that it would seriously get the broadcasting station fined as breaking FCC regs). The seven second lead is the most common standard as far as I know.
Enjoy,
Steven
You have to love the British papers. Not only does the Metro have a quarter-page color picture of the offending moment, but the headline writers have outdone themselves:
Too, too funny…
Man, I thought that thing was some kind of pastie when I saw it on the tube.
But, having (ahem) examined a very large and hi-res jpeg still of the tit-ular subjet of this thread, in which even the dimple in the midst of J.J.'s nipple is visible, her adornment sure ain’t no pastie. It looks like some kind of medieval torture device. Or a BDSM-fetishist wet dream. That’s gotta be among the biggest, scariest examples of nipple-piercing bijoux I ever laid eyes on.
BTW, and this is something that goes in hand with what Mtgman has been posting – one of the great struggles that the broadcasters have with the regulators is about how far and how specific should the regulator’s reach be. NAB spends tons of lobbying money to get the Feds to trust the industry to self-police – so, that the stations may be fined per-incident is a fair trade-off to avoid it being an actual legal mandate that you put everything on delay or have a censor-on-duty. The 10pm-6am “window” for “indecent” content (*) is itself a compromise. In that sense, edge-pushing stunts gone bad such as these *can harm the broadcasters’ and the networks’ interests, as they then justify the FCC going after them.
The whole halftime show, of course, contained much crass, tasteless, crude material, from the crotch-grabbing to the J+J bump&grind. The “wardrobe malfunction” was just the cherry on the top – BUT it DID provide a specific, objectively verifiable instance of something that has been determined to violate the “indecency” rule, as opposed to a “judgement call” over the overall show. Me, I’d let private businesses CBS and NFL hash it out privately, but if someone complains, the agency has to respond. Specially if the Chairman is one of the complainants (But then he should be less vocal about being so personally offended, or he’ll look like he’s telling the agency in advance what the ruling should be.)
(*“indecent” in this context, being not a necessarily universal value judgement of the American people but a term used in the FCC statutes and regulations to define a certain range of content. They could have just as well used “supercalifragilisticexpialidocious”, but “indecent” is the word we have. As with all such definitions, it gets arbitrary. Somehow a Jerry Springer show on girls who are dating their mothers, complete with attempted catfight, is not “indecent” to broadcast at 2pm as long as clothes, however whory, remain on and you bleep out the words that correctly describe the participants’ character.
Meanwhile, in other news, the Houston Police Chief was quoted as saying “bad taste” is not a crime in Texas. No kidding, chief.)