FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:
November 8, 2007
Contact:
Leighton Woodhouse
Communications Director, Brave New Films
lwoodhouse@bravenewfoundation.org
(310) 904-8651
Brave New Films Tells FCC: FOX News' Explicit Content Inappropriate for Basic Cable Households
Current V-Chip parental control technology cannot block FOX's explicit content because channel is not required to carry a viewer rating
LOS ANGELES - Brave New Films is asking basic cable subscribers to tell the Federal Communications Commission they should not be forced to pay for inappropriate sexual content on FOX News. A new online video from BNF shows numerous, lengthy FOX News clips of women stripping and posing nude or near-nude for cameras, frequently in stories condemning precisely such images in the media as morally corrosive. Accompanying the video is a petition to the FCC asserting that cable subscribers "should not be forced to pay for FOX's smut" and asking the agency to require cable companies to allow consumers to choose which cable channels they want in their homes and to pay only for those channels.
The video and the petition can be viewed at
http://foxattacks.com/decency
"FOX News shows more sexualized violence and humiliation than probably
any other network -- all in the name of condemning it -- while
under-showing violence in Iraq, all in the name of supporting it," said
Gloria Steinem after watching the short video, entitled FOX Attacks:
Decency. "After this video, smart viewers and advertisers will boycott
FOX."
Currently parents cannot block explicit content on FOX News even with
V-Chip parental control technology because as a 'news' channel FOX is
not required to carry a viewer rating. With a 'lockbox,' cable
subscribers can block a FOX signal to their televisions but they are
still required to pay for the channel. Brave New Films is asking basic
cable subscribers to sign a petition asking the FCC to force cable
companies to offer 'a la carte' cable, which allows subscribers to pay
only for the channels they wish to receive. With a la carte cable,
viewers could block FOX and its inappropriate sexual content and not be
forced to pay for the channel. Currently cable operators do not offer
an a la carte option even though according to an October 2007 Zogby
poll 52% of Americans prefer a la carte cable over bulk channel
packages and 71% don't want to pay for channels they don't watch
(http://www.zogby.com/news/ReadNews.dbm?ID=1377).
"Bill O'Reilly and others at FOX News cannot have it both ways," said
Robert Greenwald, President of Brave New Films. "Either they're the
morality police of our culture, or they're the smut-peddlers. They
can't be both. Right now it looks like they're more interested in being
the smut-peddlers. A lot of FOX's content would be more appropriate as
'after hours' instead of daytime coffee klatch chatter." Greenwald has
taken on FOX many times in the past, with his feature-length
documentary OutFoxed, and with online videos such as FOX Attacks: Iran, which to date has garnered 683,868 views on YouTube. Greenwald's latest online video, FOX Attacks: Decency, was launched today alongside the petition to the FCC calling for a la carte cable.
