Long before the FCC condemned the likes of Janet Jackson’s titivated nipple and Howard Stern’s sleaze, Jim Goodmon usually stood alone when he pre-empted similar antics that could have aired on his television stations.

His most recent intervention came when Fox Broadcasting Co. sent “Who’s Your Daddy?” to all its affiliates, which Goodmon’s Capitol Broadcasting determined was inappropriate programming for the community he serves: the Triangle. The 90-minute special, which ran Jan. 3, featured a woman given up for adoption at birth who was to be reunited with her biological father. The program’s “twist,” as Fox explained it, was that the woman must pick from among eight men claiming to be her father in order to win $100,000. If she guessed wrong, the imposter won the prize — but she picked right.

The show’s premise offended many adoption organizations, whose leaders criticized Fox for its alleged insensitivity. Capitol Broadcasting officials, after they previewed the program, consulted with professionals and heard from concerned viewers, agreed that the show trivialized adoption.
Instead, the company’s Fox affiliate, WRAZ/Fox 50, broadcast the documentary “I Have Roots and Branches: Personal Reflections on Adoption.”

The company, under Goodmon’s leadership, has stood its ground against seedy network programming for years when other affiliates have spinelessly spread whatever pap they receive from the national level. Since reality television blossomed early in the decade, Capitol Broadcasting often aired substitutes because many of the shows “exploit the institution of marriage.”

The practice began with Capitol’s pre-emption of Fox’s “Who Wants to Marry a Multimillionaire?” in February 2000. The following January WRAZ refused to broadcast “Temptation Island,” after the station learned “that one of the couples that would be ‘tempted’ to break up their relationship are the parents of a young child.”

In March 2003 “Married by America,” which threw five instantly engaged pairs of strangers together on a “romantic estate,” fell to Capitol Broadcasting’s ax. “While WRAZ-TV/Fox 50 realizes that reality programming has become very popular… the station has made a decision that it will not broadcast reality programming that demeans marriage,” the company said in a press release.

The decision spared Capitol — the only affiliate owner who blocked out the show — a hefty FCC fine. Each of Fox’s other 168 affiliates was fined $7,000 for broadcasting an April 2003 “Married by America” episode that featured bachelor and bachelorette parties, including sexually graphic scenes with topless strippers whose breasts were pixelated.

Capitol also refused to broadcast the July 2003 program “Cupid” on its two CBS affiliates in Raleigh and Wilmington, because the show “tempts the final contestant to propose marriage for a $1 million dowry.”

Now that the four major networks — ABC, CBS, NBC and Fox — own almost all their television affiliates, the few independent owners such as Goodmon are left to demand at least minimal standards of decency. Or at least embarrass those networks when they demonstrate that they have no standards.

Paul Chesser is associate editor of Carolina Journal.