The Federal Communications Commission fined Clear Channel Communications Inc. $495,000 yesterday for airing an April 2003 edition of “The Howard Stern Show” in which the host described a cast member’s sex life and touted a sexually oriented personal hygiene product.
The fine prompted Clear Channel, the nation’s largest radio chain, to permanently drop Mr. Stern from its stations. In February, the company suspended Mr. Stern from the six Clear Channel stations that carried his syndicated show because executives said one of his segments violated its new policy against airing indecent programming.
“We had hoped to return Mr. Stern’s show to the air free from indecent content. Unfortunately, the FCC’s latest action, combined with deafening silence from the Stern show on their future plans to comply with the law, leave us no choice but to abandon the program for good,” said John Hogan, president and chief executive of Clear Channel Radio.
The San Antonio company may ask the FCC to reduce the fine because it has pulled Mr. Stern off its airwaves, said Andrew Levin, Clear Channel’s executive vice president of law and government affairs.
“We may want the commission to mitigate the fine because of remedial actions we have taken. … This is a pretty steep fine,” Mr. Levin said.
The FCC has gotten tougher with broadcasters that air material it deems indecent since the public uproar over the nationally televised Super Bowl halftime show Feb. 1, when Justin Timberlake briefly exposed Janet Jackson’s breast.
Last month, the FCC fined Clear Channel $247,500 for a sexually explicit interview on Washington area disc jockey Elliot Segal’s morning radio show.
Federal law bars broadcast radio and television stations from airing references to sexual and excretory functions between 6 a.m. and 10 p.m., when children may tune in. The rules do not apply to cable and satellite television or satellite radio.
For the first time in its history, the FCC yesterday proposed separate penalties for multiple incidents in a single broadcast. It usually issues one fine for a broadcast, no matter how many indecent statements are uttered.
In this case, the FCC considered Mr. Stern’s description of the cast member’s sex life, a commentary on oral sex and his discussion of the sexually oriented personal hygiene product to be separate incidents.
In addition, the agency for the first time ordered its enforcement bureau to investigate whether it can fine other stations that carried Mr. Stern’s program that day, not just the six Clear Channel stations that aired it.
Infinity Broadcasting Corp., which produces Mr. Stern’s program, distributes it to hundreds of stations nationwide. Those stations, including Infinity-owned WJFK-FM (106.7) in the Washington area, still carry Mr. Stern’s show and could be subject to fines later.
For now, the FCC has singled out the six Clear Channel stations because the fine originated from a listener who heard the program on the company’s station in Fort Lauderdale, Fla.
FCC Commissioner Michael J. Copps, a Democrat, said this was a key reason he voted to support the agency’s action. Mr. Copps, who has led the agency’s campaign against adult-oriented radio programs, usually dissents from voting on FCC fines because he says they are not big enough.
“[T]he commission makes clear that its indecency enforcement will address not only the station that is the subject of a complaint, but also any other station that aired the same programming,” Mr. Copps said.
In a statement posted on his Web site, Mr. Stern said he was not surprised by the fine, describing it as a “witch hunt” against him by the Bush administration.
“It is pretty shocking that governmental interference into our rights and free speech takes place in the U.S. It’s hard to reconcile this with the ’land of the free’ and the ’home of the brave,’” wrote Mr. Stern, whose program has been in reruns this week because he is on vacation.
Mr. Stern has charged on the air that he’s being punished for his criticism of President Bush. Clear Channel’s political action committee and its employees have given $265,800 to Republicans for the 2004 election, more than any other broadcaster, according to the Center for Responsive Politics, a nonpartisan research group.
The FCC imposed the maximum fine of $27,500 for each of 18 violations on six Clear Channel stations in Fort Lauderdale; Cocoa Beach, Fla.; Louisville, Ky.; San Diego; Honeoye Falls, N.Y.; and Pittsburgh.
Legislation that would dramatically raise the maximum amounts for the fines is now moving through Congress.
Infinity paid $1.7 million in 1995 to settle various violations by Mr. Stern. The Center for Public Integrity, a watchdog group, said fines against Mr. Stern accounted for almost half of the $4 million in penalties proposed by the FCC since 1990.
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