Last night i watched south park bigger longer and uncut on comedy central at 1. It had loads of cussing and some animated nudity. Tonight at 12:50 i was watching most controversial videos on MTV2 and some videos contain nudity such as Metallica’s Turn The Page and some Bjork song. Now these all appear on the free cable i get in WA(state…), and some time ago i remember no shows contained such content. Also i get E!, but they blurr out all nudity on the Howard Stern show which plays at the same time as the MTV2 thing. Why do these shows let it after late hours and not E!, and was it some unofficial law that the networks made so they can show this stuff at late hours or what?
I interned at a radio station a few years ago and the program director once told me that they could broadcast swear words from midnight to six in the morning. Most radio stations don’t do it because they don’t want to get a bad reputation. I don’t know if the same applies for television.
I tried finding the rule regarding this but I couldn’t find it. Maybe someone else can come in with a cite.
It’s called “safe harbor”, and it’s the exemption to the FCC rules on broadcasting indecency (and I’m pretty sure it’s now from 10 pm to 6 am).
The FCC does not censor or monitor broadcasts. It acts in response to complaints from listeners or viewers. Broadcasting indecency outside of the safe harbor does not automatically lead to fines–just take Howard Stern as an example (although on a few occasions he has run afoul of too many listeners).
To sum up: between 10 and 6, broadcasters can do what they want. They can do what they want outside of those hours as well, but if people complain to the FCC about it, then the broadcaster can be fined or even have its license taken away (although fines are much more common and even then only happen when a large number of people complain).