Fred Upton Quotes

If you operate a TV or radio station, you have to have a license. It has nothing to do with fundamental freedom. It has to do with protection of the average citizen against abuses.

And they've got to be held accountable; our broadcasting system has to be made accountable; and unless it is, it's going to be very hard to change anything else for the better in this country.

What's happened to broadcasting is that broadcasting really used to be... it used to have a very clear public service quotient. And it's more or less now. And it's been lost.

Isn't it only appropriate that, in return for the free use of the public spectrum, broadcasters provide something substantial, something that wouldn't otherwise be provided by marketplace competition?

If you look at the history of broadcasting, what you find is the National Association of Broadcasters is a trade association whose mission is to protect the interests of the commercial broadcasters.

Congress has repeatedly passed laws and otherwise raised a ruckus about indecent language on the broadcast airwaves used for radio and television.

The Broadcast Decency Enforcement Act of 2004 helps address the continuing degradation on the broadcast airwaves and helps send a clear message to the broadcast industry that Alabama families, like the rest of American families, have had enough.

Do we really want the FCC to conduct investigations and issue warnings to radio talk show hosts nationwide who simply discuss the important issues of our time? The Constitution says 'freedom of speech,' not 'freedom of government-approved fair speech in rationed amounts.'

There are obviously legal restrictions on what you can do on TV in the States, as there are everywhere.

Even a very brief tape-delay introduces a form of censorship into the broadcast - not direct governmental control, but it means that a network representative is in effect guessing at what a government might tolerate, which can be even worse.

The FCC has a moral obligation to protect the public from being ‘blitzed’ and ‘saturated’ with campaign ads.

Editors must control broadcasts to prevent information, even accurate, from damaging or alarming the population by its form, presentation or timing.

Television should be regulated like a toaster.

A film has to maintain a certain decorum in order to be broadcast to a vast audience.

The I&B Ministry, at their own convenience, can't pick and choose content in serials. We have weird commercials with a lot of objectionable content running on TV post 11 P.M., but nothing has been done to stop them?

If we do have people appearing on the air live that are later found out to be Holocaust deniers or anything like that, we immediately put them onto a list of people who are forbidden from the air.

Federal law, implemented by the Federal Communications Commission, helped kill network broadcasts of Scooby-Doo, Bugs Bunny and their modern equivalents, while effectively issuing do-not-resuscitate orders for classics like 'In the News.'

The FCC's job is not to put a finger in the wind and decide which way the winds are blowing; it's to look at the facts and make a sober judgment based on what the law is.

I don't interfere with regulators.

I don't have any quarrel with the BBC.

People are fed up with broadcasters pushing the boundaries too far.

The cable law. Prasar Bharati. The Broadcasting Bill. These are all overlapping things.

It is inconceivable that CNN's morning show or any other show could be anything but horribly boring. Why? Because they won't let anyone take risks.

The FCC, under my leadership, will stand for the First Amendment.

Holding individuals accountable for corporate wrongdoing isn't ideological; it's good law enforcement.