CBS fine just a lot of furor

From the Baltimore Sun:

"After 500,000 letters of complaint, eight months of threats, two Congressional hearings, two House and Senate bills and endless hours of testimony, federal regulators yesterday fined CBS a record $550,000 for showing Janet Jackson's bare breast during the Super Bowl halftime show.

Yesterday's action by the FCC took the form of a unanimous vote by the five commissioners to slap each of the 20 CBS-owned stations - including Baltimore's WJZ-TV - for indecency with the maximum fine of $27,500. The total of $550,000 is the largest ever levied against a television broadcaster. But larger fines were imposed earlier this year against Clear Channel Communications Inc. for two of its radio programs.

"I don't see any content change at all this fall," Teeter said. "A $550,000 fine is not going to change the way a company like Viacom - making more than a billion dollars a year in profit - operates."

"After all the bold talk, it's a slap on the wrist that can be paid with just 7 1/2 seconds of Super Bowl ad time," he said. "I fear that today we're responding to a 'wardrobe malfunction' with a regulatory malfunction."