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FCC Complaint Against ‘Bubba’ Says Show Promotes Drug Use to Minors 5/16/2002 Radio shock jocks, known for continually challenging broadcast decency rules with sexual content, are also promoting illegal drug use to minors, a citizen’s complaint to the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) alleges.
Douglas Vanderlaan of Jacksonville, Florida, has filed a complaint with the FCC against Tampa, Florida-based “Bubba the Love Sponge” for violations of broadcast indecency and breaches of public interest responsibility.
“This show, as with other shock-jocks across the nation, has a high percentage of youngsters listening,” Arthur V. Belendiuk, the communications lawyer representing Vanderlaan, told C&F Report.
“Those listeners are driven to Bubba’s Web site, which features highly sexual content as well as many pro-drug messages, including links to pornography sites, escort services and drug paraphernalia retailers,” he added.
TARGETING CHILDREN
The April 3, 2002, complaint was filed against 3 Clear Channel Broadcasting stations in Florida; WRLX (FM) in West Palm Beach, WPLA (FM) in Callahan (Jacksonville) and WRLR (FM) in Port Charlotte; as well as WXTB (FM) in Clearwater, Florida, which is owned by Citicasters.
The complaint includes a transcript recounting the show’s host “Bubba,” whose real name is Todd Clem, encouraging a couple to engage in oral sex while driving a car, a fabricated call to a modeling agency to describe his private anatomy, and a recounting by a guest of his masturbating in an X-rated theater.
Other incidents: a contest for free breast augmentation surgery with six women in studio showing their breasts and discussing masturbation; a discussion of a woman having oral sex with a dog, and a spoof of the cartoon character Scooby Doo purchasing crack cocaine.
BUBBA’S DRUG PROMOTION
“I checked out all of the links, including one titled ‘Talk to Your Kids About Pot,’” said Belendiuk. “That site made false assertions like ‘Pot is almost harmless,’ ‘Pot is less addictive than caffeine,’ ‘Pot has no long-term effects on the brain,’ ‘Marijuana can make you smarter,’ and ‘LSD is not an addictive drug but it is very mind altering. It can be viewed as having similar characteristics as Pot by much more powerful [sic].’”
Documentation accompanying the FCC complaint shows that Bubba’s Web site links to numerous sites popular with the drug culture, including marijuana legalization sites and drug culture Web-based radio/cable stations, one of which promotes its airing of a music video banned from MTV for its irresponsible drug message.
The promotion of illegal drug use is a hot-button issue with the FCC. It violates the licensee’s public interest requirement, as noted in the FCC’s Memorandum Opinion and Order, 31 FCC 2d 377 (1971) aff’d Yale Broadcasting v. FCC, 478 F2d 594 (D.C. Cir. 1973), cert. Denied. 414 U.S. 914 (1973): Clearly, in a time when there is an epidemic of illegal drug use — when thousands of young lives are being destroyed by use of drugs like heroin, methedrine (“speed”), cocaine — the licensee should not be indifferent to the question of whether his facilities are being used to promote the illegal use of harmful drugs. According to the complaint filed with the FCC, Bubba’s “Web site invites listeners to join ‘The Bong Brigade.’ A smiling, child-friendly marijuana leaf invites listeners to ‘click here’ to join.”
Those who sign up are eligible for prizes given out on-air, can download the video “Because I Get High,” can download drug games like “Ganja Farmer.” That shareware game has players protect their marijuana crop by shooting and killing uniformed soldiers.
“What this means is that impressionable kids are getting pro-drug messages from an adult whom they look up to,” said Belendiuk.
CLEM’S DUBIOUS DISTINCTION
Following those five different FCC indecency fines, Bubba claimed a national media spotlight when he slaughtered a wild boar on the air. While Florida courts found that no crime had been committed in the act, Belendiuk says the question over whether the act violated the station’s public interest obligation remains.
“Clear Channel has had five separate fines imposed on them because of this guy, yet he continues to flout broadcast decency laws and promote illegal drug use to minors,” Belendiuk said. “Are they telling us that they can’t control their employee Todd Clem, or are they telling us that they don’t want to control him?”
SUCCESSFUL ACTIVISM
“I was dismayed to hear Bubba interview a woman with a Web site with explicit sexual content. Bubba asked if the site showed specific sexual acts. She replied that it does. He went on to provide the Web site address, and to encourage ‘16—and 17 year-olds’ to become webmasters as a means to ‘get a lot of … .’”
Vanderlaan says he then wrote down the names of the show’s advertisers and that night he and his wife began a letter-writing campaign.
“Since last June we have written about 400 letters,” Vanderlaan said. “Since that includes follow-up thank-you letters to businesses that have stopped advertising on the show, it comes to about 300 advertisers we have contacted.”
“I was most surprised to find that many of them were unaware that they were advertising on this show,” he added. “Many of them thanked us for our efforts.”
CLEAR CHANNEL RETALIATES
“Miss Fields complained that I had sent letters to Clear Channel’s advertisers,” Vanderlaan said. “She also claimed that I had called several of their advertisers, representing myself as being from Johnson & Johnson. While I had made a few calls from my office phone, I never represented myself as speaking on behalf of my employer.”
Vanderlaan said he provided copies of his letters to his employer, which proved Clear Channel’s allegations were false, but a warning letter was placed in his personnel file all the same.
“They were just unhappy about being dragged into this,” Vanderlaan said. That disciplinary action hamstrung his career, preventing all promotions and transfers for six months.
Vanderlaan continued his letter-writing campaign against Bubba, however. And so did his conflicts with Clear Channel.
“Just a few days after Donald sent me the information for his indecency and illegal drug promotion complaint,” his attorney Arthur Belendiuk said, “he sent me another tape of the ‘Bubba the Love Sponge’ show where they verbally attack him on the air for his letter-writing campaign.”
CHEESY LEGAL THREAT
“I was advised that your clients, Doug and Doris Vanderlaan, have been disseminating letters in an effort to interfere with the business relationships between my client and his employer as well as my client and his advertisers,” Diaco wrote, demanding that the Vanderlaan’s assertions about the “Bubba the Love Sponge” Show be substantiated. “Please advise your client to cease and assist [sic] such activities,” wrote Diaco, concluding his letter with the threat of a lawsuit.
Pinaud shot back a spirited response affirming the truth of Vanderlaan’s communications.
“The bottom line, I assure you, is that, if you file a suit, we can absolutely prove the truthfulness of the allegations that have been set forth regarding the content of Mr. Clem’s show,” Pinaud wrote. “That Mr. Clem would even suggest that he does not say these things is absurd.
“Inasmuch as my clients are merely bringing the content of Mr. Clem’s shows to the attention of his sponsors and the like and expressing their displeasure with their sponsorship and their hopes that such sponsorship will cease, my clients are engaging in non-tortious and fully protected speech which is not actionable or subject to restraint in any manner.”
“Candidly, if my clients wanted to, they could even legally engage in more aggressive protest conduct directed at the show or its sponsors, and, respectfully, there is simply nothing that your client could do about it,” he added.
Vanderlaan said he had also filed an indecency complaint against Bubba on his own but the FCC rejected the complaint. “The Enforcement Bureau’s reply said that the parts of the show I highlighted, while offensive, were not actionably indecent,” he said.
“The indecency and drug complaint that Art Belendiuk has crafted from my tapes of Bubba’s show is much more fine tuned and legally sound,” he added.
ARE FINES ENOUGH?
“The fines are proportionally so small, they actually serve to promote the program they are attempting to censure,” he added.
A good example is the FCC’s early actions against Howard Stern. At $7,000 per incident, the fines were so small compared to Infinity Broadcasting’s budget that they served to promote Howard Stern.
“Soon after those fines were imposed, Stern went on a media frenzy, holding rallies and getting lots of press,” said Belendiuk. “He even released an album titled ‘Crucified By the FCC.’ That’s a good amount of publicity for the money. The FCC made Howard Stern a national star.”
“Bubba the Love Sponge” is syndicated by Clear Channel Communications, which also owns the stations on which the show airs. Clear Channel, based in San Antonio, Texas, operates 1,225 radio and 37 television stations across the nation. It also has interests in outdoor advertising and radio stations internationally.
Clear Channel stations span all formats, airing anything from heavy metal music and shock-jocks, to flag-waving country formats, even Christian radio. In many cities, Clear Channel also operates more than one station, playing to a family audience on one hand while promoting “Bubba” on the other.
“This new business of promoting illegal drug use to minors steps even further over the line,” Belendiuk told C&F Report. “We think it is time that the FCC stop rubber stamping the license renewals of such stations.
“We are petitioning that the stations carrying Bubba have their licenses revoked. At the very least they should be required to prove their commitment to public service before their licenses are renewed. These stations need to stand before a public gathering and defend this stuff; explain how such content meets their station’s public interest requirement,” he added.
PURE EVIL
“I have read a transcript of one shock-jock who fantasized on the air about killing a woman with a lawnmower,” he said. “There is a lot of dark and degrading material on the air these days. Much of it is an attempt to be gross rather than to be funny.”
Vanderlaan, whose FCC complaint made local news in the Florida Times-Union in Jacksonville, Florida, said that despite the trouble it caused with his employer, he and his wife have continued to contact Bubba’s sponsors.
To date about 50 advertisers have dropped their sponsorship of the show.
“Since that article was printed, we have been getting encouragement from other Christians in the area,” Vanderlaan said. “Every responsible adult who listens to this show is horrified. I am confident we have an open and shut case, and that we will prevail in the end.” |
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