Action for Children’s Television and the Regulation of Broadcast Indecency

Abstract

This brief article discusses the decision in Action for Children’s Television v. FCC, where the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the “safe harbor” provisions of the Public Telecommunications Act of 1992 permitting the broadcast of indecent programming only between 10 p.m. and 6 a.m. The ACT III court found that the time-channeling regulation was supported by the government’s compelling interest in protecting children from broadcast indecency.