IP AND PROFANITY

This spring, Wal-Mart will begin selling the ClearPlay DVD player, which skips over or mutes objectionable material in a broad array of quite granular options (for example, it distinguishes “strong profanity” from “graphic profanity” and “crude language”). The entry of this product into the market, especially following the hullabaloo over Janet Jackson's Superbowl halftime show and the controversy surrounding FCC obscenity fines for radio shock-jock Howard Stern, evinces an overall demand among consumers for more content customization. Satisfying that demand (and then some) is one of the more enticing promises of an IP communications world, in which a lot of these cultural debates could be defused. For starters, Howard Stern's decades-long battle with the FCC would end quietly if his show were accessed via the Web (through subscription-based satellite radio) and not the public airwaves. Listeners frustrated with the Britney-obsessed pop fascism of Top 40 radio are already supporting Internet radio (with its superior variety) in greater numbers. And more TV shows that failed to reach critical mass in the mainstream are finding cult audiences as DVDs. The ClearPlay device may be a clumsy step down the path of addressing the vast range of tastes and tolerance levels among the country's quarter-billion consumers (for example, it can't cover up a “wardrobe malfunction” in a live broadcast). But IP is the destination.