My Rentseeker of the Year recipient from 2004 is gunning for a second consecutive title. Today, the FCC denied indecency complaints by the PTC against episodes of Arrested Development and Will and Grace, along with a complaint by the "American Family Association" against an unedited Veterans' Day broadcast of Saving Private Ryan by ABC. It's not their own families that these folks are seeking to "protect." It's yours.
Along with these shows, the FCC has now denied a total of 39 PTC complaints in this calendar year (though some go back several years), including one or more against:
Everwood, Fastlane, Girls Club, Dawsons Creek, Austin Powers, NYPD Blue, Friends, The Diary of Ellen Rimbauer, the Jamie Kennedy Experiment, Run of the House, Scrubs, Gilmore Girls, One Tree Hill, Steve Harvey's Big Time, Charmed, Angel, Boston Public, AUSA, Night of Too Many Stars, The Next Joe Millionaire, A Minute with Stan Hooper, The Simpsons, and King of the Hill. About the only genre missing from here is an episode from the always-entertaining "Parent Trap" series.
I'm guessing that, much to his relief, this is the last set of indecency orders that will be handled by the FCC under Chairman Powell's watch. The final line of his statement on the Private Ryan complaint:
The Commission must stay faithful to considering complaints within their setting and temper any movement toward stricter liability if it hopes to give full effect to the confines of the First Amendment.