How does radio in 2011 deal with this?

[lglavin@mail.com]

 >-----Original Message-----
>From: Kevin Vahey <kvahey@gmail.com>
>To: bri <bri@bostonradio.org>
>Sent: Tue, Mar 15, 2011 12:35 pm
>Subject: How does radio in 2011 deal with this?


>The NY Times points out this morning that 3 of the Top 10 songs on Billboard
>- radio stations can not play without having the FCC screaming.

>http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/16/arts/music/from-cee-lo-green-to-pink-speaking-the-unspeakable.html

>We certainly have come a long way from George Carlins' seven magic words but
>as the younger generation continues to ignore radio in bigger numbers, what
>is the industry supposed to do?
>The consumers have spoken...and pirate stations exploit this.
>Will we see a day the FCC finally waves the white flag?

 Last weekend, Charles Krauthammer, a panelist on "Inside Washington", originated by a 
 TV station in Washington, DC (I saw it on WGBX-DT2's WGBH World;  it was also cited on
 Mediaite.com) used the four-letter word for nipple that rhymes with 'beat'.  I guess
 that's two letters off from the slang term Carlin used.  On February 12th, the Metropolitan 
 Opera performed a work by contemporary composer (so contemporary he conducted) John Coolidge
 Adams (not to be confused with John Luther Adams)called "Nixon in China".  At one point, 
 a character in the opera uses the 2-word slang term for what Oedipus (the Greek, not the WBCN guy)
 did to Jocasta.  This was a Saturday matinee performance that was televised in HD to movie
 theaters around the world AND broadcast on radio stations at least in the US and Canada.
 In a few weeks, after the latest PBS begathon season is over, it will be televised by 
 over-the-air TV stations in some markets. Will there be any reaction?  We'll just have to
 wait.  Going back a number of years, the SAME "obscenity" was used in an opera by the
 now-deceased British composer Sir Michael Tippet called "The Ice Break".  Its American
 premier by Sarah Caldwell's Opera Company of Boston  was broadcast live during a Sunday matinee by
 WGBH-TV and later a commercial recording of the work was issued.  That recording was played during 
 a Michael Tippet Orgy(tm) on WHRB.