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Prepared Witness Testimony The House Committee on Energy and Commerce
H.R. 3717, the "Broadcast Decency Enforcement Act of 2004
Subcommittee on Telecommunications and the Internet
Mr. Paul Tagliabue
Chairman Upton and Members of the Subcommittee: I am pleased to appear before you today as you consider H.R. 3717, the Broadcast Decency Enforcement Act of 2004. The specific features of the Bill apply to broadcast stations and networks, and the NFL therefore does not take a position on the bill itself. In a broader sense, however, H.R. 3717 addresses a matter of fundamental importance to our League, our thirty-two teams, and our fans, and which affects both producers and broadcasters of entertainment programming alike. The NFL has always taken great pride in the quality and popularity of its television programming, and in the way that NFL games bring families and communities together. We are aware of the special character and place of our sport and our league for many millions of Americans, and of the unique character of the Super Bowl game itself. We know that many millions of Americans view NFL football - and football generally - as representing traditional and important values of teamwork, achievement, sportsmanship and fair play. Each year NFL games continue to be viewed - by a wide margin - by the largest television audiences of any American sporting event. This is so not only during the League's regular season on Sundays and Monday nights, but also on special occasions - such as Thanksgiving Day - and our playoff games. Above all, we recognize that the Super Bowl itself has come to be an unofficial mid-winter national holiday; that the Super Bowl has a unique place in millions of American homes; and that many of the most watched television programs in American history have been Super Bowl games. With respect to sports television specifically, 18 of the top 20 highest rated television programs have been Super Bowl games - the only two exceptions involving the 1994 Winter Olympics. Super Bowl 38, which was played on February 1 in Houston, represented the finest football entertainment that the NFL offers. It also featured a halftime show that departed sharply from the NFL's views of what constitutes high quality and acceptable entertainment, and which has properly resulted in significant criticism of all who were involved with that show. It has also highlighted the concerns previously expressed by the FCC and many members of Congress. At the outset, I would note that while MTV produced the halftime show, it did so under a contract with the NFL. We accept our responsibility for having entered into that contract and for what resulted from it. When we agreed to have MTV produce this year's halftime show, we expected a show that would feature high-energy, outstanding and diverse musical entertainment that would appeal to the more than 100 million Americans who would watch some portion of the Super Bowl telecast, and that would be free of the controversial elements that have generated well-grounded complaints from so many viewers. The show that MTV actually produced this year fell far short of the NFL's expectations of tasteful, first-class entertainment. In our statement issued immediately after the halftime show, we made clear that we were deeply disappointed and offended by the inappropriate content of the show. This disappointment goes well beyond the Janet Jackson-Justin Timberlake stunt that has garnered so much attention. Since the Super Bowl, we have engaged in a thorough review of this entire matter. In the course of my testimony today, I will summarize our findings. Let me address three questions, the answers to which I think will help the Subcommittee better understand what occurred on Super Bowl Sunday and what we are doing to ensure it does not happen again. First, in planning the musical entertainment at the Super Bowl, including the halftime show, were we and CBS striving to have high quality programming that was tasteful and reflected the special place of the NFL and the Super Bowl in American life? The answer to this question is "yes." We selected MTV to be the halftime entertainment producer for this year's Super Bowl because, at CBS's request, MTV had produced the Super Bowl halftime show for our game in January 2001 - and MTV had at that time produced both a quality show, and other quality programming during the Super Bowl weekend. This year, we were again dealing with MTV because of its affiliation with CBS. (In addition to the halftime entertainment, our Super Bowl day programming on CBS included two other one hour programs produced by CBS-affiliated companies - Nickelodeon and MTV - which were televised between 12:00 Noon and 2:00 P.M. EST.) Our halftime entertainment in recent Super Bowls has been tasteful and tailored to our wide Super Bowl audience. We have had a wide range of talent, from an 80-member choir, to Clint Black, to Tony Bennett, to Diana Ross, the Blues Brothers, and Stevie Wonder and Gloria Estefan. (A full listing of the halftime entertainment at all Super Bowls is attached to my statement.) Since the September 11 terrorist attacks and the beginning of military combat in Afghanistan and Iraq, we have made special efforts to ensure that all aspects of the Super Bowl, including special events and game-day programming, have been fitting and appropriate. For example, for the Super Bowl immediately after the September 11 losses, we made certain that the entertainment at the January 2002 Super Bowl (televised by FOX) properly reflected the Nation's mood and the losses that the Nation had suffered. We thus developed a program that included the Boston Pops orchestra with a performance of Aaron Copland's "Lincoln's Portrait," featuring taped appearances by former Presidents Ford, Carter, Bush and Clinton, and Former First Lady Nancy Reagan on behalf of her husband. The halftime show in that game was an extremely well-received tribute to those lost on September 11th performed by U2. Despite our earlier satisfactory experience with MTV, a number of contentious issues arose late last Fall relative to key aspects of the planning for the halftime show for the game in Houston on February 1 this year. As a result, it became necessary for senior NFL executives to speak directly to their counterparts at CBS Sports, and to convene four-way discussions among the NFL, MTV, CBS Sports and AOL, the halftime sponsor. By mid-December, these discussions had not resulted in a satisfactory resolution, and our senior executive staff was seriously considering terminating MTV as the producer of the halftime show. At that time, our staff recommended that I should review the type of Super Bowl halftime entertainment that we and CBS desired to have with CBS Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Les Moonves. I did so on December 16, 2003, and I believed after that conversation - and continue to believe today - that CBS clearly shared our goal of having high quality, broadly acceptable halftime entertainment that would bring credit to both the NFL and CBS Sports. We were, in short, on the same page with respect to the halftime entertainment. Specifically, I emphasized to Mr. Moonves that the focus of the halftime entertainment needed to be on the 100 million plus fans of the NFL and CBS Sports on Super Bowl Sunday, not on the far different and much smaller MTV audience. I also emphasized the special character of the Super Bowl, both generally and for this year's game in Houston. Uniquely, the game was, by complete coincidence, being played on the first anniversary of the loss of the Columbia Space Shuttle and the Columbia astronauts, and we were playing in Houston - the home of the space program (the Johnson Space Center); we had been working with NASA and other government officials for most of the past year to ensure that the day of game, in-stadium events would include elements commemorating the loss of the astronauts and paying tribute to the other heroes of space; we were still at war, both with terrorists and in Afghanistan and Iraq, with thousands of U.S. troops in both countries connecting to home by watching the Super Bowl telecast; we would honor the military servicemen and women in the pre-game, hopefully with an appearance by the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff; and former President Bush and Mrs. Bush were generously involved - as Houstonians - in welcoming the Super Bowl to Houston and were expected to attend the game. Finally, I noted that the League had been badly embarrassed in a concert at the National Mall in Washington kicking off the 2003 season by an unexpected, tawdry segment involving the singer Britney Spears, and I did not want any repeat of anything like that in the Super Bowl halftime entertainment. This explanation of my goals for the Super Bowl entertainment reflected decisions we had already made to avoid controversy arising out of game-related televised musical entertainment. Specifically, we had already decided not to have musical entertainment - televised or not -- during the halftimes of our two Conference Championship games played in mid-January this year, even though the games are televised by CBS and FOX and would attract very large audiences. This decision was based on our judgment that previous Championship Game musical entertainment had generated criticism and created unnecessary risks of ill will with our fans and the public generally. Second, based on our discussions with CBS and MTV, did we have a realistic expectation that MTV would produce a tasteful, satisfactory Super Bowl halftime show? Again, I believe that the answer is "yes." Our staff had numerous discussions about the talent who would appear in the halftime show. Our staff agreed that Janet Jackson would be the featured artist and believed that Kid Rock, who had joined NFL players on a USO trip last summer to entertain troops in Iraq and Kuwait, would be a positive addition to the musical lineup. Our staff had also flatly rejected a number of other performers suggested by MTV because their music, their personal conduct, or both made them inappropriate for the Super Bowl audience. In early January, 2004, we again sought to ensure that the MTV-produced halftime entertainment would be satisfactory and without controversy. Specifically, along with our key staff involved with presenting the Super Bowl, I attended a meeting on January 9 with the producers of the Super Bowl pre-game entertainment (Best Productions) and with MTV representatives. At this session, we again emphasized the importance of focusing on the mass nature of the Super Bowl audience; the MTV representatives confirmed that they understood our desire to have a halftime show that would be well received by a Super Bowl audience, and gave an overview of the halftime entertainment that was being developed to accomplish this. They emphasized that all of the elements were not yet in place but would be carefully tailored to meet the NFL's concerns - starting with the use of two, nationally-renowned college football bands to start the halftime show, and including Janet Jackson's "Rhythm Nation" - which was described as a serious song with a message of tolerance. Three days prior to the Super Bowl, January 29, our staff attended the halftime show's one "dress" rehearsal, along with representatives of MTV and CBS. It is fair to say that the most objectionable aspect of the halftime show was not rehearsed. Nonetheless, there were a number of elements of the show that disturbed our staff, and they promptly communicated those concerns to MTV officials, both orally and in writing. Our staff specifically identified concerns with lyrics, costumes, and the use of the Flag by Kid Rock. One of the MTV executives in charge of producing the show ended a detailed e-mail exchange by saying "I know you are worried, but we are all aware of what we need to do and will address all you [sic] concerns above." In evaluating what our goals were with respect to Super Bowl musical entertainment, it is instructive to consider the Super Bowl pre-game show, produced on the field by the NFL with a third party and on television by CBS. The pre-game show featured a tribute to the Nation's space program in a performance by the classical artist Josh Groban. It recognized the musical traditions of Texas by featuring both country music stars Willie Nelson and Toby Keith and Hispanic artists Mango Punch. And it concluded with a moving and elegant performance of our National Anthem by Beyonce Knowles. That was the kind of show that we sought and expected at halftime. Third, in the immediate weeks and days preceding the Super Bowl were our standards and procedures for reviewing the halftime entertainment as timely, exacting and effective as they should have been - and if so, how did the halftime show turn out to be unsatisfactory, offensive and embarrassing to us? In hindsight, the answer is clearly "no," our standards and procedures did not accomplish what they should have. Having reviewed these events, I now recognize that we in the NFL did not conduct ourselves in our dealings with CBS and MTV in a manner that guaranteed that the Super Bowl halftime entertainment would be acceptable to a mass audience, including many families, and most important, consistent with the standards we had set for ourselves. Our people and our management procedures did not provide the necessary assurance that the halftime entertainment would be appropriate to the very special place of the Super Bowl game in American sports, the unique circumstances of presenting such an event at this time in American life, and on a special day of remembrance of fallen astronauts in the city (Houston) that was both home to the space program and host to the Super Bowl game. Some of the reasons for this seem relatively clear; others still need to be ascertained through further review, with additional perspective and certainly with greater clarity. Clearly, too much credence was given to our staff's experience with MTV in producing a quality halftime show three years ago. In addition, our staff clearly believed - and communicated those beliefs to me - that we had effectively communicated to CBS and MTV our expectations with respect to the quality and character of the Super Bowl halftime entertainment. And right up until the day before the Super Bowl game itself, statements by MTV's representatives seemed to confirm this belief. To note a single example, in a New York Times feature on the evolution of Super Bowl halftime entertainment on Saturday, January 31 - the day before the game, it was stated that the League had clearly communicated its expectations to MTV and the MTV co-executive producer of the halftime show was quoted as saying that: "Know who the audience is. . . . MTV is 12 to 24, and the NFL is 18 to 80. It's a little bit different from what we do, but we know our role." In conclusion, we in the NFL absolutely recognize and accept our responsibility to ensure that all Super Bowl programming is tasteful, first-class, and highly regarded by NFL fans and the public generally. We will certainly be wiser in dealing with others but, most important, we will change our policies, our people and our processes for managing the halftime entertainment in order to deal effectively with the quality of this aspect of the Super Bowl game. Mr. Chairman, thank you for the opportunity to testify today. I would be pleased to respond to any questions from the Subcommittee. Attachment
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