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FCC: 'Desperate Housewives' promo not indecent after all

A mildly steamy locker-room intro from ABC's Monday Night Football isn't "indecent" after all, the Federal Communications Commission decided Monday. [Missing Links]

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Declan McCullagh is the chief political correspondent for CNET. You can e-mail him or follow him on Twitter as declanm. Declan previously was a reporter for Time and the Washington bureau chief for Wired and wrote the Taking Liberties section and Other People's Money column for CBS News' Web site.
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Declan McCullagh
Nicolette Sheridan A mildly steamy locker-room intro from ABC's Monday Night Football isn't "indecent" after all, the Federal Communications Commission decided Monday.

The segment, which aired Nov. 15, featured Philadelphia Eagles wide receiver Terrell Owens and "Desperate Housewives" actress Nicollette Sheridan. Wearing only a towel, Sheridan tries to seduce the football player.

Analysts at the FCC's "enforcement" bureau spent four months critiquing the video, weighing the camera angles (Sheridan drops the towel and is shown from the waist up from behind) against the length of the segment. They eventually concluded (pdf file): "Although the scene apparently is intended to be titillating, it simply is not graphic or explicit enough to be indecent under our standard."

Still, FCC Commissioner Michael Copps, a Democrat, took the opportunity to lecture ABC on broadcast standards: "There wasn't much self-discipline in this particular promotion."