THERE'S NO SAVING PRIVATE RYAN

[Scott Fybush]

At 04:35 PM 11/11/2004 -0800, John Bolduc wrote:
>WMUR-TV Channel 9 Manchester NH announced in their 6:00pm newscast that
>both they and Channel 5 Boston would not be showing Saving Private Ryan
>tonight. To cut to the chase, they were worried about swear words before
>10pm and getting sued/fined over it.
>
>I would think they could just locally bleep the f-words ? ? ?

Not if they don't want to get in trouble with ABC. ABC's deal with 
Spielberg is that the movie runs unedited, period. ABC has already turned 
down several Midwestern affiliates that wanted to delay the movie to 10:35 
PM CT.

The affiliates - and there are many of them, including WMTW and WGGB as 
well - that are preempting the movie are going to have a tricky scheduling 
job when it comes to rejoining the network later tonight. The movie runs to 
11:21 PM ET, there's a 35-minute hole for news, and Nightline is scheduled 
for 11:56 PM.

The whole thing's a political statement of sorts, trying to make the case 
that the FCC's enforcement of content rules has become so unpredictable 
that a station could indeed be fined for the language used in Saving 
Private Ryan. And indeed, the FCC has declined to give stations any sort of 
advance guidance, saying that would run afoul of prior-restraint issues. 
The Parents Television Council, meanwhile, in its self-appointed role as 
guardian of America's airwaves, has itself issued a statement saying it has 
no intention of filing any complaints about the language used in the movie. 
Trouble is, the PTC doesn't have a monopoly on filing those complaints, and 
it only takes one to trigger a huge fine these days, especially in a 
circumstance like this one in which no ABC affiliate can claim to be taken 
by surprise by what's coming down the network in a few minutes.

This would not be an issue in Canada.

s