Clear Channel suspended 96 Rock’s Regular Guys Eric Von Haessler and Larry Wachs indefinitely on Friday for accidentally broadcasting sexually explicit material, after the FCC began cracking down on indecency earlier this year. (File photo)
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Mar 26, 2004  |  By: CHRISTOPHER SEELY  | COMMENTS |   |  

Clear Channel Entertainment, the nation’s largest radio company, last week suspended the Regular Guys, the morning show shock jocks on 96 Rock in Atlanta who sometimes offended gay listeners with their anti-gay rants and pranks.

But when Clear Channel indefinitely pulled the plug on the popular duo March 22, Larry Wachs and Eric Von Haessler were silenced not for their remarks about gays but over a stunt with a porn actress that went awry.

“They have hate crimes for violence, but sometimes words do as much damage as physical violence,” said Gloria Rutherford, a parent of a gay child who monitors the Regular Guys and has repeatedly complained to 96 Rock.

The suspension of the Regular Guys comes as Clear Channel works to abide by a crackdown from the Federal Communications Commission, incensed over what some commissioners view as increasingly indecent material being broadcast on American airwaves. The issue took center stage last month when singer Janet Jackson exposed her breast during a half-time performance with Justin Timberlake at the Super Bowl.

“This growing coarseness on television and radio has resulted in a dramatic rise in public concern and outrage about what is being broadcast into their homes,” FCC Chair Michael Powell said during testimony before Congress on Feb. 11.

But the FCC’s pursuit of indecent material leaves some gay activists questioning why the federal agency doesn’t address hate speech with the same vigilance.

If federal officials want to protect America’s children, they should consider examining why hate speech by anti-gay radio jockeys is tolerated and “boob talk” is prohibited, said John Aravosis, a gay Internet activist who led a campaign against talk radio host “Dr. Laura” Schlessinger that ultimately led to her TV show failing soon after its launch in 2000.

“Boob talk is bad, but hoping gay people get AIDS and die is A-okay,” Aravosis said. “Welcome to the new America.”

Aravosis was referring to Michael Savage, a San Francisco radio show host who launched a TV talk show on MSNBC last year, where he said gay people are “sausages” and told a gay caller he “should get AIDS and die.”

But between 6 a.m. and 10 p.m., the FCC only prohibits indecent speech defined as language that “depicts or describes sexual or excretory activities or organs in terms patently offensive,” according to the agency’s Web site.

Indecency fines
Prior to Jackson exposing her breast on national TV, Republicans in Congress were already criticizing federal regulators for not more strictly enforcing indecency standards.

Powell testified before Congress on Feb. 11, 10 days after the Super Bowl incident.

“I urge … Congress to adopt legislation that will increase the statutory maximum of our forfeiture penalties at least ten-fold,” Powell said.

Powell said the current maximum penalty for broadcast indecency constituted “peanuts to multi-million dollar corporations.”

The Senate’s “Broadcast Decency Enforcement Act of 2004” would increase the amount of indecency violations from a $27,500 maximum charge per violation to $275,000. The bill is currently before the Senate Committee on Science, Commerce & Transportation.

A House bill, passed on March 11, increases the maximum fine for radio and television indecency from $27,500 to $500,000 per incident.

The House legislation passed two weeks after the FCC slapped Clear Channel with a $755,000 fine — its largest penalty ever — for 26 indecency violations by radio personality Bubba the Love Sponge, whose name is Todd Clem.

In the “indecency analysis” of Clem’s 26 violations, the FCC found sexually explicit and excretory function speech dating back to 2001.

“The broadcasts involved conversations about such things as oral sex, penises, testicles, masturbation, intercourse, orgasms and breasts,” according to an FCC report.

Clear Channel fired Clem on Feb. 24, and then removed shock-jock Howard Stern from six Clear Channel stations the next day. The company owns 1,200 radio stations across the country.

Regular Guys suspended
Clear Channel’s internal efforts to match the FCC’s crackdown were announced last month on the same day that Howard Stern was suspended.

“If a DJ is found to be in violation of FCC rules, there will be no appeals and no intermediate steps,” John Hogan, chief executive officer of Clear Channel, said in a statement about the company’s new “Responsible Broadcasting Initiative.”

The Regular Guys fell victim to the Clear Channel initiative March 22, during an attempt to mock the FCC indecency standards.

Wachs and Von Haessler planned to record a sexually explicit interview with porn star Devinn Lane and then play it backwards on the air as a joke in a segment entitled “Backward Smut,” according to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.

The recording session went haywire as Lane ...