‘Family Guy’ takes on FCC

The Federal Communications Commission’s enforcement of media decency standards has significantly raised the profile of the five-member body.

Commissioner Jonathan Adelstein said he is not surprised the FCC itself has become a part of the news, but he was taken aback at a recent private brunch when a young boy wanted to meet him because of his job.

The boy had seen a recent episode of the popular Fox animated series “Family Guy.” The show is known for crude humor, and the entire Nov. 6 episode was devoted to skewering the FCC.

Mr. Adelstein said he had not seen the episode. He said media decency standards are difficult to enforce because guidelines are intentionally kept loose to weigh the content and context of the material.

“Context is important,” Mr. Adelstein said during an interview last week. “These issues don’t lend themselves to being black and white, or right and wrong.”

So if children are learning about the FCC by watching “Family Guy,” can a cartoon featuring the commissioners battling media evildoers be too far off?

BET going wireless

Black Entertainment Television Inc. yesterday announced the start of its BET Mobile service, which enables consumers to buy ringtones, games and other products through cellular phone providers Cingular Wireless, Sprint Nextel and T-Mobile for between $2 and $3. Similar agreements with Verizon Wireless and Alltel will start early next year.

The opportunity was compelling for the D.C. company because the black viewers it attracts are heavy users of wireless data applications, and today’s most popular ringtones tend to be urban music hits, said Scott Mills, chief financial officer at BET.

Webcast coming to ’World News Tonight’

When Elizabeth Vargas and Bob Woodruff start as co-anchors of ABC “World News Tonight” Jan. 3, they also will begin hosting a live daily webcast briefly updating the day’s top stories and previewing that night’s TV broadcast.

The ABC press release said the live webcast will be “the first time an evening newscast has produced a unique program for its audience.”

The release is cleverly worded, but the evening news programs at CBS and NBC both offer blogs, reporters’ notebooks and other Internet-only features. National representatives from both NBC and CBS said they had no plans to follow suit. The local NBC and CBS stations, WRC-TV (Channel 4) and WUSA-TV (Channel 9), respectively, both produce afternoon webcasts.

Giving thanks

About 6:30 a.m. on Thanksgiving, TV viewers could have tuned in to any of the four local newscasts to learn about the efforts of Food & Friends, a D.C. charity that prepares and delivers meals to people living with serious illnesses.

“We got incredibly lucky” that all four stations were broadcasting live at the same time, said Lisa Butenhoff, communications director for the charity.

She said 550 volunteers helped feed 3,000 people Thanksgiving meals and the TV crews even helped one another. When one station’s sound equipment didn’t work, another network shared its truck’s resources.

• Channel Surfing runs Wednesdays. Call Dan Caterinicchia at 202/636-3173 or e-mail dcat@washingtontimes.com.