FCC v. Pacifica Foundation

Federal Communications Commission v. Pacifica Foundation, 438 U.S. 726 (1978), is a landmark decision of the United States Supreme Court that upheld the ability of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to regulate indecent content sent over the broadcast airwaves.

Background

On the afternoon of October 30, 1973, radio station WBAI in New York City, owned by the nonprofit Pacifica Foundation, aired a program about societal attitudes toward language and included the monologue "Seven Words You Can Never Say on Television" by comedian George Carlin, from his 1972 album Class Clown. The broadcast included Carlin's recitation of the words "shit", "piss", "fuck", "cunt", "cocksucker", "motherfucker", and "tits".John Douglas, an active member of Morality in Media, filed a complaint with the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) claiming that he had heard the broadcast on his car radio while driving with his young son, and that the content was inappropriate for minors per the FCC's rules on indecency over the public broadcast airwaves. Douglas also noted that the material should not have been broadcast during the daytime (it was approximately 2:00 pm) when minors were more likely to be listening, per the FCC's rule requiring adult-oriented programming to only be broadcast during late-night hours.

The FCC forwarded Douglas's complaint to Pacifica Foundation for comment. The foundation replied that the program was intended to be educational, addressing public attitudes toward language, and that Carlin was "a significant social satirist" who "like Twain and Sahl before him, examines the language of ordinary people... using words to satirize as harmless and essentially silly our attitudes towards those words." Pacifica also noted that it had received no other public complaints about the broadcast.

In February 1975, the FCC issued a declaratory order stating that Pacifica and WBAI "could have been the subject of administrative sanctions." While no such sanctions were imposed, the FCC recorded the incident in the station's file for later consideration if there were customer complaints about the station in the future or if its broadcasting license was up for renewal. The order noted that regulations on indecent broadcast content had indeed been violated by WBAI. The order also explained that the Carlin routine was "patently offensive" and "deliberately broadcast" at a time when minors could have been listening, which was forbidden by the Communications Act of 1934.