The FCC’s rules for broadcast, cable, and internet speech run on three different tracks. Over-the-air radio and television carry the heaviest content obligations, including indecency restrictions, equal-time rules for political candidates, and public interest duties tied to the license. Cable and satellite operators face structural rules like must-carry and franchise fees but almost no content restrictions. The internet gets the strongest First Amendment protection of any medium, with Section 230 shielding platforms from liability for user posts and no federal indecency regime at all.
The reason the same speech can be illegal on one medium and fully protected on another comes down to how each medium reaches its audience, and whether it uses a scarce public resource to do so.
Why Broadcast Is Regulated Most Heavily
Broadcast radio and television use the electromagnetic spectrum, a finite resource. Only so many stations can operate on distinct frequencies before signals interfere. That physical limit became the legal justification for treating broadcast speech differently from print, and the Supreme Court endorsed the reasoning in Red Lion Broadcasting Co. v. FCC (1969), holding that the rights of viewers and listeners outweigh the rights of broadcasters when far more people want to broadcast than there are frequencies available.1Justia. Red Lion Broadcasting Co., Inc. v. FCC, 395 US 367 (1969)
A second rationale layers on top. In FCC v. Pacifica Foundation (1978), the Court held that broadcast signals are uniquely pervasive because they enter the home uninvited and can reach children before a parent has a chance to intervene. Scarcity and pervasiveness together are what let the FCC do things to broadcasters it cannot do to newspapers or websites.
Critics have argued for decades that scarcity is outdated in an era of cable, satellite, and streaming. The Supreme Court has not overruled Red Lion, and until it does, over-the-air stations remain the most heavily regulated speech platforms in the country.
What Broadcasters Have to Follow
Indecency and the Safe Harbor
Federal law makes it a crime to broadcast obscene, indecent, or profane language over radio or television, with penalties of up to two years in prison.2Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 18 USC 1464 – Broadcasting Obscene Language The three categories carry different weight. Obscene material has no First Amendment protection and is banned at all hours, though the Miller v. California threshold is so high that mainstream commercial programming almost never crosses it.3Justia. Miller v. California, 413 US 15 (1973)
Indecent and profane content sits in a different category. Material describing sexual or excretory activity in a patently offensive way is prohibited between 6:00 a.m. and 10:00 p.m., when children are most likely watching or listening. From 10:00 p.m. to 6:00 a.m., broadcasters may air the same material inside what’s known as the safe harbor.4Federal Communications Commission. Obscene, Indecent and Profane Broadcasts
The fines are steep. The Broadcast Decency Enforcement Act of 2005 raised the statutory maximum from $32,500 to $325,000 per violation.5GovInfo. Public Law 109-235 After inflation adjustments, the current cap is $508,373 per incident, with a ceiling of $4,692,668 for a single continuing violation.6Federal Register. Annual Adjustment of Civil Monetary Penalties to Reflect Inflation Because multiple violations can occur inside a single broadcast, one bad live event can expose a network to millions in total fines. That risk is why every major network runs live shows on a several-second delay.
Enforcement starts with public complaints. Anyone can file through the FCC’s Consumer Complaint Center by providing the date and time, the station’s call sign or channel, and a description of the material.4Federal Communications Commission. Obscene, Indecent and Profane Broadcasts The FCC evaluates context, including whether offensive language was scripted or fleeting. In FCC v. Fox Television Stations (2009), the Supreme Court found that the agency’s decision to stop excusing isolated slip-ups was not arbitrary, but the Court declined to rule on whether the new policy was constitutional, so the boundaries of fleeting-expletive enforcement remain somewhat unsettled.7Justia. FCC v. Fox Television Stations, Inc., 556 US 502 (2009)
Equal Time for Political Candidates
Under 47 U.S.C. ยง 315, if a broadcast station gives or sells airtime to one legally qualified candidate for public office, it must offer equivalent opportunities to all other candidates for the same office on the same terms. The station cannot censor what a candidate says during the allotted time and cannot charge one candidate more than another for the same slot.8Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 47 USC 315 – Candidates for Public Office
News programming is exempt. A candidate’s appearance on a legitimate newscast, a bona fide news interview, a news documentary where the appearance is incidental, or live coverage of a news event does not trigger equal-time obligations. Without those carve-outs, interviewing any candidate would require identical time for every opponent, which no newsroom could realistically schedule.
License Obligations
Broadcast licenses run for eight-year terms.9Federal Communications Commission. Broadcast Radio License Renewals by Date At renewal, the FCC examines whether the station served the public interest, committed serious violations of the Communications Act, or built up a pattern of lesser ones. The renewal application requires disclosure of felony convictions, discrimination findings, failures to maintain a public inspection file, and extended periods when the station went dark.10Federal Communications Commission. The Public and Broadcasting Broadcasting knowingly false information about crimes or catastrophes can trigger enforcement if it foreseeably causes substantial public harm.
Television stations must also air at least 156 hours per year of educational and informational programming for children, with at least 26 of those hours in each calendar quarter as regularly scheduled weekly programs.11eCFR. 47 CFR 73.671 – Educational and Informational Programming for Children
Emergency Alerts and Accessibility
All broadcast stations, cable systems, satellite providers, and satellite radio services must participate in the Emergency Alert System. They must monitor designated alert sources, keep encoding and decoding equipment operational, and relay national emergency messages immediately. A Presidential national emergency message preempts everything on the air.12eCFR. 47 CFR Part 11 – Emergency Alert System
Video programming distributors must caption their television programs. Captions must be accurate, synchronized with the spoken words, complete from start to finish, and positioned so they don’t block important visuals.13Federal Communications Commission. Closed Captioning on Television Limited exemptions cover very short public service announcements, programming aired between 2:00 a.m. and 6:00 a.m., and locally produced non-news content with no repeat value. Affiliates of ABC, CBS, Fox, and NBC in the top 120 markets must also provide audio description for blind or low-vision viewers, currently 87.5 hours per calendar quarter.14Federal Communications Commission. Consumer Guide: Audio Description
Cable and Satellite: Fewer Content Rules, Different Structural Rules
Cable and satellite operate under significantly fewer content restrictions than broadcast. Subscribers pay for the service and choose to bring it into the home, so the uninvited-signal rationale that justifies broadcast indecency rules does not apply. No one accidentally receives HBO.
The FCC does not regulate indecency on cable or satellite. Networks on these platforms can air graphic language, nudity, and violent content at any hour, with no safe harbor restriction. Federal obscenity law still applies because obscene material is unprotected regardless of medium, but that threshold rarely touches mainstream programming. Premium channels effectively self-regulate through subscriber expectations and advertiser relationships.
What cable does face is content-neutral structural regulation. In Turner Broadcasting System, Inc. v. FCC (1997), the Supreme Court held that content-neutral rules on cable operators receive intermediate scrutiny, meaning the government must show the rule advances an important interest unrelated to suppressing speech and does not burden substantially more speech than necessary.15Justia U.S. Supreme Court Center. Turner Broadcasting System, Inc. v. FCC, 520 US 180 (1997) That is a meaningful test, but easier for the government to satisfy than the strict scrutiny applied to direct content bans.
Must-Carry Rules
Turner specifically upheld the must-carry rules. A cable system with 12 or fewer usable channels must carry at least three local commercial stations. Systems with more than 12 channels must reserve up to one-third of their capacity for local signals.16Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 47 USC 534 – Carriage of Local Commercial Television Signals Without these rules, cable operators could refuse to carry competing local stations and starve them of viewers.
Franchise Fees
Cable operators pay franchise fees to local governments for the right to use public rights-of-way. Federal law caps these fees at 5 percent of gross cable revenue, and any in-kind contributions the local government requires as part of the franchise agreement count toward that cap at fair market value.17Federal Register. Local Franchising Authorities Regulation of Cable Operators and Cable Television Services Infrastructure build-out and customer service costs do not count against the cap.
Internet Speech Gets the Strongest Protection
The internet receives the strongest First Amendment protection of any communication medium. In Reno v. ACLU (1997), the Supreme Court struck down portions of the Communications Decency Act that tried to restrict online indecency, finding that none of the factors justifying broadcast regulation apply online. There is no history of extensive government oversight of the internet, no spectrum scarcity, and no invasive signal reaching into the home. Accessing specific online content requires affirmative steps.18Justia U.S. Supreme Court Center. Reno v. ACLU, 521 US 844 (1997)
Content-based restrictions on internet speech face strict scrutiny, the same demanding standard applied to laws about newspapers or books. There is no FCC indecency regime for websites, no equal-time rule for online platforms, and no safe harbor hours governing when provocative content can appear.
Section 230 and Platform Liability
Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act says no provider of an interactive computer service can be treated as the publisher or speaker of information posted by someone else.19Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 47 USC 230 – Protection for Private Blocking and Screening of Offensive Material Without this protection, platforms hosting user comments, reviews, or social posts would face potential defamation liability for every piece of content their users create. A “Good Samaritan” provision protects platforms when they voluntarily remove content they consider offensive, so a website that deletes some posts does not become legally responsible for the ones it leaves up.
The immunity has limits. It does not shield platforms from federal criminal liability, including obscenity and child exploitation laws. It does not apply to intellectual property claims. Since Congress passed the Allow States and Victims to Fight Online Sex Trafficking Act in 2018, Section 230 no longer protects platforms that knowingly facilitate sex trafficking, and state criminal charges for conduct that would violate federal sex trafficking laws can also proceed.
Children’s Online Privacy
The government cannot broadly regulate online content, but it does regulate how websites collect data from children. The Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act applies to websites and online services directed at children under 13, as well as general-audience sites that actually know they are collecting information from children in that age group. Covered operators must obtain verifiable parental consent before collecting personal information and must post clear privacy policies.20Federal Trade Commission. Children’s Online Privacy Protection Rule (COPPA)
The FTC finalized significant updates to the COPPA rule in early 2025. Operators now need separate parental consent before sharing children’s data with third parties for targeted advertising. The amended rule also limits how long companies can retain children’s personal information, expands the definition of personal information to include biometric identifiers, and requires greater transparency from industry self-regulatory programs.21Federal Trade Commission. FTC Finalizes Changes to Childrens Privacy Rule Limiting Companies Ability to Monetize Kids Data COPPA targets data collection rather than expression, but it meaningfully shapes what online platforms can do when children are involved.
Net Neutrality Is Not Currently in Force
One rule readers often assume exists at the moment does not. The FCC tried to reclassify broadband internet as a telecommunications service in 2024, which would have given the agency clear authority to impose net neutrality requirements on internet service providers. The Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals struck down that order in early 2025, holding that broadband providers offer an “information service” under the Communications Act and that the FCC cannot use the telecommunications service provision to justify net neutrality regulation.22United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit. In Re MCP No. 185 – Federal Communications Commission The court also found that mobile broadband does not qualify as a common carrier service subject to mandatory regulation.
ISPs currently face no enforceable federal net neutrality obligations. They are free, as a legal matter, to block, throttle, or prioritize traffic as they choose. Any future federal net neutrality regime would likely require new legislation from Congress rather than FCC rulemaking under existing law.