Radio Daze

By Richard Stengel

Howard Stern is an equal-opportunity offender. With his raucous gibes and racy double entendres, he galls black and white, Jew and Gentile, man and woman. You name them, Howard Stern has insulted them. Stern's radio talk show, broadcast in New York City and Philadelphia weekdays from 6 a.m. to 10 a.m., is perhaps the most scabrous of a genre that has come to be known as raunch radio. The brash, shaggy-haired Stern maintains that he could not care less whom he offends, but last week he offended the one group that could turn off his microphone: the Federal Communications Commission.

In an action that considerably broadens its definition of indecency on the airwaves, the FCC issued warnings to three radio licensees, among them WYSP- FM, the Philadelphia station that airs Stern's show, for broadcasting material that contained sexually explicit language. One of those stations, cited for broadcasting excerpts from a play describing homosexual practices, was referred to the Justice Department for possible criminal prosecution for obscenity. In a move that will undoubtedly affect -- and restrict -- the sexual content of what broadcasters say, the FCC suggested it will henceforth take enforcement action against shows it deems to be "indecent."

Until now, the regulatory agency has acted only against violations of its so-called seven-dirty-words policy, a standard first enunciated in 1976 in response to the broadcast of a monologue by Comedian George Carlin titled Filthy Words, in which he mocked the banning of certain sexually explicit terms. In its ruling that year against New York City station WBAI-FM, the FCC defined indecency as anything "patently offensive as measured by contemporary community standards," but the commission elected to move against only those stations that permitted one of the proscribed words to be uttered on the air at a time of day when children might be listening. Last week, however, the commission announced it will now use the wider definition. Said FCC General Counsel Diane Killory: "The interpretation has been too narrow. We will apply the generic definition and not limit it arbitrarily to seven specific words."

Civil libertarians suggested the ruling will cramp the style of broadcasters as well as the range of subjects they are willing to discuss. Barry Lynn, an American Civil Liberties Union lawyer in Washington, D.C., noted that Stern's monologues may be rude, but they are not lewd and are "well within the bounds of protected bad taste" as guaranteed by the First Amendment. David Salniker, executive director of the Pacifica Foundation, which operates one of the stations reprimanded by the FCC, argued that the agency is far too vague about where it is drawing the line. "Does this mean that Alice Walker can't read from The Color Purple anymore, as she has on our station, because the book deals with incest?" he asked.

Lawyer Steven Lerman, who represents WYSP, put it most succinctly: "What was protected speech yesterday is not protected speech today." Yesterday's innuendo, he suggests, is today's indecency. Yet Lerman predicted that because the FCC has the singular power to bestow and withdraw licenses, broadcasters will be reluctant to jeopardize their franchises by testing the agency's ruling in court or on the air.

The FCC argues that it is only responding to protests from the public. The agency says it received 20,000 letters last year from listeners complaining about offensive language on the radio. Lerman says that Donald Wildmon, executive director of the National Federation for Decency, wrote two letters to the FCC about Stern's show and, along with a group called Morality in Media, urged other Philadelphians to do the same. The FCC received 35 complaints; Stern's Philadelphia audience alone is 500,000. WYSP says it will comply with the FCC's ruling while investigating its constitutionality. In the meantime, Stern declares he has the perfect remedy for people who find his show offensive: turn it off.

With reporting by Anne Constable/Washington and Mary Cronin/New York