Jeff Jarvis is a bit upset over Howard Stern getting dumped by Clear Channel, calling it a chilling effect against free speech.
Photodude responds with the argument that Clear Channel just made a business decision, on the basis that it might no longer be in its best financial interests to keep Mr. Stern and his shock-jock schtick on the payroll.
Jeff says that the reason for this is because Clear Channel and other broadcasters got “called to the woodshed” by the FCC and were told to clean up their act.
I’m not sure if MTV was among the corporations at that woodshed meeting, but today they backed away from their own “self-censorship” that came in the wake of Nipplegate. That’s right: Britney’s back on the air, 24-7! This seems to be a step in the opposite direction from what Jeff is worried about. As far as Howard Stern goes, he just got cut off from 6 stations. Clear Channel runs 1200 stations, so he obviously wasn’t a massive hit with CC in the first place. He’s still running on every other station that syndicates his show. He hasn’t been arrested or otherwise physically prevented from practising his version of free speech.
This comes down to the difference between public airwaves and private channels. Anyone can listen to Howard Stern on the radio. You have to pay for cable to watch Britney on MTV. As long as there is any kind of regulation on those public airwaves, then whoever is doing the regulating is going to have some say over what gets broadcast. Bitch over the FCC laying the smackdown on Clear Channel all you like- if you take away the FCC’s involvement, and deregulate radio altogether, then Clear Channel will smile and take over every last one of the remaining public stations that it doesn’t already control.
We could always have FCC-1, FCC-2, ala BBC-1, BBC-2.