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| Wilson Compares Viacom to Enron |
February 11, 2004 |
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Albuquerque, NM – Congresswoman Heather Wilson at a hearing today compared Viacom, owner of CBS and MTV, to Enron for demonstrating bad corporate behavior by airing the Super Bowl halftime show that included indecent broadcasts.
Rep. Wilson, a cosponsor of the Broadcast Decency Enforcement Act of 2004 (H.R. 3717), made the following statement at today’s hearing of the House Telecommunications and Internet Subcommittee:
“I was visiting my mother when the Super Bowl was on and called home just before halftime. We are very restrictive about television watching at our house, but we have a sports fanatic fourth grader who asked for special permission to watch the game and my husband and our kids watched the game together. Even before halftime, I heard about the farting horses, proving that Madison Avenue does pitch its material to the average fourth grader’s sense of humor.
When I called the next day, my son asked me without prompting whether I had seen the half-time show. I asked him what he thought of it. He said, ‘I thought it was nasty.’ The disrobing was apparently the talk of the elementary school playground in our neighborhood. The kids on the playground also seemed to know that the television station ‘might get sued,’ which is a pretty good fourth grade description of getting fined by the FCC. My son seemed to think that they should ‘sue Justin Timberlake and Janet Jackson, because they were the ones who did it and it was really nasty.’
If the fourth grade boys at a public elementary school in Albuquerque can tell right from wrong, we need to ask ourselves where you corporate CEOs lost your way.
I shouldn’t have to use the NFL halftime show as a negative example to teach my kids. It is hard enough to raise G-rated kids in an R-rated world. Families should be able to watch the Super Bowl together or turn on the car radio without fear of seeing or hearing something indecent.
As a lawmaker, I want to know how something like this made it on the air during a show that is tightly scripted from beginning to end and rehearsed for weeks. Surprises during a football game should come on the field, not from rock stars ripping off clothing. The playgrounds of America should have been abuzz as kids talked about the moves of the Patriots, not the moves of Justin Timberlake.
The FCC plays an important role in protecting Americans, particularly children, from indecent programming. The FCC has a statutory mandate to prohibit indecency on broadcasts. But government alone is not the answer.
I am concerned about big corporations like Viacom, the owners of CBS, MTV and Infinity Broadcasting, allowing performers to use profanity and sexual innuendo on radio and indecent images on television to improve their market share and corporate profits.
While some argue that television and radio reflects social values, it also influences them. In the same way that the Enron scandal highlighted unacceptable corporate financial behavior, Viacom’s support of ‘shock jocks’ and allowing a tasteless Super Bowl halftime performance to be broadcast nationwide has become an entertainment industry scandal.
You knew what you were doing. You knew that shock and indecency creates a buzz that moves market share and lines your pockets.
If the executives in charge of the entertainment industry do not take immediate steps to stop the indecent programming they are sending to our homes, the legislation we are considering today will only be a starting point for more aggressive Congressional action.”
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