I've finally gotten around to updating my Federal Communications Commission indecency complaint chart through the second quarter of 2008. That's all the numbers that the FCC has released so far. As usual they jump all over the place: 108,919 complaints in January 2008; just 311 in June.

Last month I wrote a rant for Ars Technica about the need for better stats, to which Adam Thierer has an interesting response. He lays responsibility for the boom in complaints squarely at the feet of the Parents Television Council and the FCC. Thierer writes:

• On July 1, 2003, the agency began tallying each computer-generated complaint sent to the FCC by any advocacy group as an individual complaint, rather than as one complaint as had been done previously. The advocacy group benefiting from that change had challenged the FCC to make the change by June 30th and boasted later that it was responsible for the FCC’s redirection, citing reassurances of FCC commissioners.
• In the first quarter of 2004 — the time when the Super Bowl incident with Janet Jackson occurred — the FCC began counting complaints multiple times if the individual sent the complaint to more than one office within the FCC. This change, which had the capability of increasing by a factor of 5 or 6 or 7 the number of complaints recorded, was noted in a footnote of that quarter’s FCC Quarterly Report. The footnote acknowledged that “[t]he reported counts may also include duplicate complaints or contacts…”

Read the rest of Thierer's very smart analysis here. I pretty much agree with his narrative up to the point where he more or less reiterates his call for the elimination of the FCC. Lawrence Lessig made a similar call last year, urging Congress to come up with some kind of stripped down replacement for the agency (an Innovation Environment Protection Agency [iEPA]). My response at Ars:

The new year got off to a great start with the news that Viacom and Time Warner cable have come to some kind of resolution on their carriage renewal contract.  The companies were deadlocked over Viacom's request for more money for its 19 channels, which include the Daily Show, SpongeBob SquarePants, and Dora the Explorer. It was down to the last minute last night, with the possibility of all those shows going dark in various markets. 

But hope springs eternal. The warring parties' respective CEOs have announced the Good News:

"We are pleased that our customers will continue to be able to watch the programming they enjoy on MTV Networks. We are sorry they had to endure a day of public disagreement as we worked through this negotiation," declared Glenn Britt, President and CEO of Time Warner Cable.

"We've been partners with Time Warner Cable for a long time, and we're happy to be renewing that partnership for the benefit of their customers and our loyal viewers. It's gratifying that we could reach an agreement that benefits not only our audiences but that is also in the best interest of both of our companies," gushed Philippe Dauman, President and CEO of Viacom. No word yet on the details of the deal.

Or maybe it's the other way around? And while we're asking questions, did this crawl warning, courtesy of Viacom, actually appear today on Time Warner and Bright House cable channels across the country?

“Alert! Alert! Alert!

Attention Time Warner Cable and Bright House Network customers, starting tonight, you will lose 19 channels from your TV including MTV, VH1, Spike, Comedy Central, TV Land, Nickelodeon and Noggin

Don’t miss out on your favorite shows. You can stop this! Time Warner Cable customers call 1-800-762 3786 Bright House Networks customers call 1 866 309 3279 and demand they keep these channels! Must be at least 18 years old to call.”

If it did, TW and Bright House are pretty darned pissed about it, but who knows whose right in this war? Viacom is asking two bits more per cable customer for its channels, which include Dora the Explorer, SpongeBob SquarePants, and the Daily Show. If it doesn't get the boost, the content giant says it will withdraw the programming and more from the aforementioned video providers as of midnight tonight.

The great crusade to save America from Janet Jackson's right breast went once more into the breach on Friday. The United States government has asked the Supreme Court to restore its $550,000 fine against CBS television stations for famously broadcasting the singer/dancer's 2004 Superbowl half time performance, which included a 9/16-second exposure of one of her mammary glands. The Third Circuit Court of Appeals struck down those sanctions in August. Now, in the last days of the Bush administration, the Federal Communications Commission and the Solicitor General want the Supremes to hear the case, which could saddle the Obama administration's FCC with it for years to come.

It is clear from the FCC's Petition for a Writ of Certiorari that the agency appreciates the significance of its rebuke by the Third Circuit. The lower court's decision "threatens the Commission’s ability to take enforcement action with respect to any of the numerous pending complaints involving the broadcast of brief images," the government's plea to the Supreme Court confesses, "and perhaps even brief sexually explicit language other than expletives."

This feature story on Kevin Martin is probably the most challenging FCC-related writing project I've ever taken on.

Interview: laying it on the line with FCC chair Kevin Martin

By Matthew Lasar | Published: October 06, 2008 - 11:30PM CT

Anti-consumer?

What a difference nine months makes. In December of 2007, activists reviled Federal Communications Commission Chair Kevin Martin as the ruthless champion of big media, thanks to his efforts to relax the agency's restriction on newspaper/TV station cross-ownership. They all but booed Martin off the stage at a November Commission hearing about the proposal held in Seattle, Washington.

But an hour after Martin explained on Friday, August 1, why the FCC will enforce its net neutrality policies against Comcast for P2P blocking, Free Press, Public Knowledge, and Vuze held a telephone press conference on the decision. The subject inevitably moved to the FCC's Chair.

The Federal Communications Commission has granted the wireless industry's request for a round of tests to determine whether the agency's proposed free, smutless broadband plan will cause interference in nearby bands recently sold to wireless providers. The announcement is a victory for T-Mobile, which has led the battle to extend the Commission's proceeding on the proposal to allow for conflict testing in and around the 2155-2180MHz zone.

The FCC's Office of Engineering and Technology (OET) announced the tests yesterday. They will be run at a Boeing aircraft facility near Seattle, Washington. "Given the interest in several different parties to complete this testing we agreed to do so and will add the results into the public record on this proceeding," FCC spokesperson Robert Kenny told Ars this morning.

[ more ]

"If there is to be regulation, therefore, it must apply equally to all providers." So wrote the National Cable and Telecommunications Association to the Federal Communications Commission today. The point? Plenty of colleges and universities have "network management" strategies too, NCTA asserts. The trade group has sent a carefully crafted list of these stated policies to the FCC.

NCTA vice president Daniel L. Brenner says that his chart proves that "virtually all of the nation's top universities... restrict users' ability to engage in activities that cause excessive congestion." From the document it looks like NCTA staff grabbed U.S. News and World Report's ranking of top colleges, rummaged around the schools' IT Web sites, then selectively cut-and-pasted their stated computing policies in the filing. [ more ]