UPDATE: The petition was overturned!
The last bastion of free speech in radio, satellite broadcasting, is now under the censorship gun by conservatives.
Mt. Wilson Broadcasters has decided that if free, traditional radio is subject to heavy-handed censorship by the FCC because it is publicly available to everyone, then so should pay, satellite radio. So far satellite has escaped censorship because it is a premium service that people must subscribe to (and thus voluntarily agree to receive the content). However, Mt. Wilson has decided to piss on the parade:
“Their defense is that they’re 100% subscription, and therefore only people who want to hear obscene language will hear it. But they’re not 100% subscription. They make it available to car rentals without any charge and there are no controls on it – families rent cars and they can pick it up.
No controls? So if someone walks up to a rental counter and needs c ar, they’re forced at gunpoint to take the stallite radio option? No, I don’t think so.
The truth is, while XM radio is “free” in some Avis rental cars, you must upgrade to “Premium” or “luxury” class for it. And you can always turn it off.
I simply don’t understand why people feel that absolutely everything must be regulated for content. I can reluctantly understand that some heavy censoring of content is required for regular broadcast radio. I can entertain the notion the someone, somewhere might accidentally listen to a traditional radio broadcast that offends them, and we just can’t allow that. Perish the thought. However a great deal of conscious consent is necessary to tune into a satellite broadcast, including an investment in new equipment, and a subscription by credit card (which basically guarantees that you’re an adult, or at least that an adult is monitoring your purchases). If you rent a vehicle, you DO have to request that the vehicle comes with a satellite radio, and even then you are not forced to listen to it… you can still listen to good, safe, censored (and in my opinon, terrible) terrestrial radio, right from the same console.
Mt. Wilson appears to be afraid that not only will children hear adult content before they’re ready to make adult decisions of their own (which I thought was the real reason behind obscenity and profanity restrictions), but that even people who knowingly ask for this content will actually be able to get it too. ::GASP!:: Lord, we can’t have that!
Lastly, as a subscriber, I can say that it’s not as if satellite radio is just bursting at the seams with 130 channels of pornography, either. Both providers clearly map out which channels “may contain frequent explicit language” and if that tantalizing possibility is just too much for your virgin ears to take, a simple phone call to customer service will enable a channel blocking feature that blocks those channels from your radio, leaving you with nice, wholesome clean channels only. And the blatantly adult material, which accounts for less than 1.5% of XM’s content and pretty much 0% of Sirius content, is further hidden in a “premium” category that subscribers must not only specifically request, but pay a few bucks a month extra for.
This censorship business is getting to be insane.