LLFCC ran into Dan Isett last week at the Federal Communication Commission's Consumer Advisory Committee meeting, on which Isett, the PTC's Director of Corporate and Government Affairs, sits as a member. Ten minutes later we were still talking about policy. So I called Dan today at his PTC office in Alexandria, Virginia, to get the conversation on the record. Turns out he's been reading my blog . . .

LLFCC: Dan, as you know, in June the 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals overturned FCC indecency citations against Fox TV, arguing that the agency's stance against so-called "fleeting expletives" was overbroad. I know that you guys didn't like that decision. What do you think Congress or the FCC should do about it?

Dan Isett: Well, the decision was made on very narrow administrative grounds, so essentially if the Congress were to simply say 'no, what we meant by' broadcast indecency included things like profane language at the times of day when children are most likely to be in the audience, then that would render this decision moot, and that's something that we would like to see the Congress do.

LLFCC: Sooner or later the FCC is going to make a decision on the proposed XM/Sirius merger, what do you think they should do?

Isett: We don't have a position on the merger itself. We will say that XM/Sirius's move toward real consumer choice in programming offerings is an important step in a subscription platform and one that we've been pushing the cable industry to adopt for years. So certainly we think that this is a significant development and one that would very much be well received by consumers and by families.

LLFCC: Why not take a stand? Everyone else has.

Isett: It's not mission specific to us.

LLFCC: But you clearly want some law requiring a la carte packages in cable right?

Isett: No, what we've clearly said is that the cable industry ought to do that. Everything we do—I should say this from the outset—we would much prefer to have happen voluntarily. There's no reason why the things that we advocate shouldn't happen voluntarily. Unfortunately we have industries that are committed to not doing anything voluntarily.

LLFCC: So you would be in favor of some kind of law requiring them to do so, wouldn't you?

Isett: Certainly, but I would be equally happy if NCTA had a press conference tomorrow morning saying that 'we've been wrong this whole time. We're going to allow people to have some sort of ability to pick and choose and pay for exactly what they want, just like they do for every other good and service.'

" . . . the concept of community standards of decency, which are to be upheld and preserved by local broadcasters, as part of their public interest requirements, that concept is done violence by further consolidation of media outlets."

LLFCC: In some ways this is a media consolidation issue. Pretty soon the FCC is going to wrap up its proceeding on the media ownership rules. Hearings are almost done. The comment cycle is done. They've published their studies and the public has sixty days to comment. Then it will be up to the FCC Commissioners. What does the Parents Television Council have to say about this?

Isett: There's clear evidence that consolidation of media has led to a coarsening of television content. I don't think that there's any question about that. You know the concept of community standards of decency, which are to be upheld and preserved by local broadcasters, as part of their public interest requirements, that concept is done violence by further consolidation of media outlets.

For example: How can a broadcaster make a reasonable assessment of community standards if they have no real presence in the community? If the ownership is not in the community? If those decisions are only made by programming executives often thousands of miles away, with no real input from the local broadcaster, then there's no ability by local broadcasters to preserve those community standards. Thus our interest in media consolidation issues. Obviously that has a lot to do with the cable choice debate as well.

LLFCC: I see you guys praise McDonalds for their child advertising practices. But now you are on the FCC Consumer Advisory Committee, which deals with advertising and the actual foods that McDonalds serves, which are widely criticized for inducing diabetes and obesity. Will the PTC expand its concept of "family friendly" to deal with issues like that as well?

Isett: Not necessarily. Our goal is to represent our constituency and what we believe at least to be the overwhelming view of the American people that there is too much coarse content that comes across their airwaves and in general. So certainly we'll try to bring that issue to the fore. As far as these other issues we've also been part of the FCC and Senator Brownback's Childhood Obesity task force. We been an active part of that as well, although its not directly related to our mission.

Certainly there are responsibilities from these media companies, from these other large corporations that have this enormous reach, when it comes to children in particular, to have a better sense of responsibility when it comes to these issues.

The ironic thing is—this is loosely related I think—is that some folks who are deeply concerned about exposure of children to smoking, for example, and I would share that concern. For some reason there is often a disconnect between if a child is exposed to smoking in entertainment, then that has a deleterious effect, but a great many of those same people will turn around and say that exposure to sexual or violent or profane content doesn't have a similar effect. Frankly, I think that's absurd.

LLFCC: Senator Jay Rockefeller is talking about some kind of law to regulate violence on television. People say that this will be more difficult than regulating indecency. Seven dirty words are seven dirty words. Violence is more complicated. What is unacceptable violence? How do you think that such a bill should be constructed?

Isett: I think it is unfortunate that we even have to have a conversation about what a bill should look like. Clearly on the issue of television violence, the onus is squarely on the industry to do a better job of self regulation in this regard. There have been better than a thousand studies, longitudinal and otherwise, that have documented the deleterious effects of media violence on children. They all say essentially the same things, that there are harmful effects almost across the board. The scholarship out there that says different things is generally sponsored by the entertainment industry itself.

There is overwhelming consensus that there are deleterious effects to exposure to this type of programming. And its unfortunate that the entertainment industry has instead taken the tack that they should have the unfettered ability to pump unlimited amounts of this content into virtually living room in the country, rather than having a real conversation about what they can do and should do to be part of the solution.

So the answer to that question is that I think that it's unfortunate that you even have to have a conversation about a bill. This isn't something that you should have to regulate, that you should have to legislate. We shouldn't even be at this point. What was overwhelmingly clear to me at the June hearing before Senate Commerce Committee is that the industry as a whole has no intention whatever of coming to the table in a meaningful way to try to address this problem.

LLFCC: So that brings us back to the question, what's the standard going to be? How do you regulate? How do you define unacceptable violence in a Congressional law?

Isett: Well, that's not up to me. I'm not a U.S. Senator.

LLFCC: True that. Anything you would like to add?

"I really want to make that clear. We very conscientiously are not political and not religious . . . "

Isett: I remember the last e-mail exchange we had. I feel compelled to sort of bring it up again. I emailed you about the fact that we're not a conservative group. And I remember that your response to my e-mail was something along the lines of 'Gosh, I'm sure they would love to pretend like they really represent a lot of people.' Let me point out a couple of things:

One, we're about to cross the threshold of having 1.2 million members. So we do represent a lot of people. Second, those people are quite literally of every different persuasion imaginable, having met with a great many of them myself. Let me just assure you that there are a lot of different kinds of people who are members of the PTC. You don't have to be a conservative, social or otherwise, to care about these issues. Everybody cares about these issues—about the media environment that children are exposed to. Because everybody understands the fact that there are serious repercussions for that.

And I think this is a spectacular example of that. Whose been among our closest allies on the issue of cable choice? It's Dan Lipinski, a Democrat from Illinois. Who has been among of our closest allies on the Senate Commerce Committee, in this Congress particularly, on these content related issues? It's been Senator Rockefeller and Senator Pryor, in particular. Senator Inouye has been a great help as well.

So to characterize us as a conservative group when we've worked closely with these officeholders with whom I likely disagree politically on a great many things, that's secondary to what our mission is. I really want to make that clear. We very conscientiously are not political and not religious for those reasons. My boss and I [Tim Winter, President of the PTC], we may argue about the war, we may argue about tax policy or whatever, but we agree about this. And my boss and I are on very different pages in our personal politics. But that is secondary to what we've trying do. And I think that's evidence of the fact that everybody cares about these issues on one level or another. We may disagree sometimes on solutions, but it's really wholly inaccurate to try to pigeonhole us in that regard.

LLFCC: Dan, you get the last word here. Thanks.

Isett: Absolutely. Have a good day.