Federal Communications Commission v. Fox Television Stations, Inc.

The FCC's original indecency policy treated the repetitive, literal use of an offensive term about bodily functions more strictly than a spontaneous, nonliteral use meant to convey emotion. Fox Television Stations, Inc. (defendant) aired programs containing spontaneous, nonliteral uses of offensive terms, and the FCC soon abandoned its old lenient approach to such uses in favor of a stricter policy, explaining the change by pointing to enforcement difficulties under the old rule, recent case law undercutting the literal/nonliteral distinction, and new bleeping technology. Applying the new policy retroactively, the FCC found Fox had violated the indecency rule. The Second Circuit held the FCC failed to justify why the new policy was preferable to the old one and reversed, and the FCC appealed.