- Joined
- Feb 4, 2013
This happens because the FCC guidelines are not an absolute thing, they're all based on the sensibilities of the audience. So national television and heavily syndicated radio have a very broad audience and you walk a fine line in not being overly offensive to many different groups, but a local radio show, even one with a large audience, can shrug off every time they're reported for saying "bullshit" because the audience is pretty solidly blue collar and aren't offended by the occasional use of the word.That shit cracks me up every time when a movie gets edited for television and they do the same thing, muting out the "god" part but leaving the "damn" in. A long time ago I had the chance to ask a producer at a local station why they do that, and he explained that while "damn" was technically a curse word, it was still "socially acceptable" to say on its own, and mentioning "god" on its own was also acceptable, combining the two was considered potentially blasphemous and far more offensive to the majority Christian audiences network TV is aimed at than just the word "damn" was. That whole "taking the lord's name in vain" thing.
So they cut the blasphemy and leave the swear. Kinda funny in a way. "Fine, we won't let anyone say 'god damn' but FUCK YOU THEY CAN SAY 'DAMN' ALL THEY WANT!"
It's why you can show Saving Private Ryan on national television, maybe just with a short disclaimer, in prime time, unedited, because all those f-bombs are appropriate to the broadcast and no reasonable person would be offended.
They're actually a good way to regulate the airwaves, based on the audience rather than some random beaurocrat.