TV Got a Lot Worse This Week

My kids like the show the television show “Wipeout.” You know, it’s the one where regular people bounce, jump and duck their way through an obstacle course over a pool. There’s a lot of people getting bonked, boofed, and bammed into the mud or a pool or just plain ol’ goo. Essentially it’s like all the good parts of American’s Funniest Home Videos put together in one show. So we’re watching it last night and while the show itself was fine the commercials for other shows on ABC were so offensive that I took to turning the sound off during commercials.

One commercial fooled me. They typed out the words “We slept with each other prom night, meet your son” or something like it and showed a picture of a young woman with a baby. I can’t imagine how many parents grimaced during that commercial. It’s really gotten to the point where you can’t trust tv at all during even the 8 o’clock hour. I know it’s probably been like that for a while but I’m just discovering it now because my children are now old enough to stay up past 8 o’clock.

Now, this week a ruling from the Second Circuit Court of Appeals in New York City decided that all the rules against expletives on television should be overturned. Yup. So, technically right now network shows can say anything they want.

On July 12, the Second Circuit Court of Appeals in New York City warmly offered the TV networks exactly what they wanted: the shredding of the FCC’s lamely enforced rules against broadcast indecency. As of now, the network stars can swear at will in front of impressionable children. These judges did not rule narrowly on the focus of the case — “fleeting expletives” that networks aired unintentionally. They ruled broadly in favor of all expletives.

There’s no other way to say this. The ruling is idiocy.

Read the rest of Brent Bozell’s excellent column on this ruling. If you have a television this affects you.