Regulation
Broadcast television is regulated by the Federal Communications Commission. The FCC awards licenses to local stations, which stipulate stations' commitments to educational and public-interest programming. The FCC also prohibits the airing of "indecent" material over the air between 6 a.m. and 10 p.m. Although broadcast stations can legally air almost anything they want late at night—and cable networks at all hours—nudity and graphic profanity are very rare on American television, though they are common on pay television services that are free from FCC regulations and pressure from advertisers to tone down content, and often require a subscription to view. Broadcasters fear that airing such material will turn off advertisers and encourage the federal government to strengthen its regulation of television content.
Premium cable networks are exceptions, and often air very racy programming at night, though premium channels often air program content with strong to graphic profanity, violence and nudity in some cases during the daytime hours. Some networks, such as Playboy TV, are devoted exclusively to "adult" content and therefore viewers may find scenes of simulated or graphic sexual intercourse and nudity on such channels. Cable television is largely, but not entirely, unregulated. Cable systems must include local over-the-air stations in their offerings (see must-carry) and give them low channel numbers. The systems cannot show broadcast-network affiliates from other parts of the country, however cable systems can air stations out of nearby markets if there are no stations affiliated with one of the major networks (though this is becoming far less common with the existence of over-the air stations carrying one network affiliation on the main channel, and affiliating with another network on a digital subchannel, thus allowing these network-affiliated digital subchannels to be carried via digital cable).
Cable systems can also air satellite-relayed over-the-air stations originating from other areas of the United States, known as superstations (of which there are currently only six around the country, the most prominent being WGN America, which airs some programming carried by WGN-TV in Chicago), which for the most part are often aired in rural areas and if carried nationally, may have a separate feed carrying different programming than that of the local area feed that is SyndEx-proof (i.e., syndicated programming that the superstation has obtained full signal rights to) and may omit network programming from that station's network affiliation; all superstations, except for WSBK-TV in Boston, are currently affiliated with a broadcast television network as WGN-TV, WPIX in New York City, KWGN in Denver and KTLA in Los Angeles all being affiliated with The CW and WWOR-TV in Secaucus, New Jersey affiliated with MyNetworkTV.
Read more about this topic: Television In The United States
Famous quotes containing the word regulation:
“Lots of white people think black people are stupid. They are stupid themselves for thinking so, but regulation will not make them smarter.”
—Stephen Carter (b. 1954)
“Nothing changes my twenty-six years in the military. I continue to love it and everything it stands for and everything I was able to accomplish in it. To put up a wall against the military because of one regulation would be doing the same thing that the regulation does in terms of negating people.”
—Margarethe Cammermeyer (b. 1942)
“Nothing can be more real, or concern us more, than our own sentiments of pleasure and uneasiness; and if these be favourable to virtue and unfavourable to vice, no more can be requisite to the regulation of our conduct and behavior.”
—David Hume (1711–1776)