Wednesday, April 19, 2000
'Angel' won't fall from lineup
Listen up, people: Touched by an Angel won't be touched by the Federal Communications Commission!
Notices distributed by Tristate churches claiming that atheists have been granted an FCC hearing to ban Touched by an Angel from the airwaves are false.
“It's a total hoax, and a 25-year-old hoax at that,” says David Fiske, FCC spokesman.
Yet once or twice a week, he says, the FCC receives an inquiry about CBS being “forced to discontinue Touched by an Angel for using the word "God' in every program.”
According to the rumor, being spread via the Internet, atheist followers of Madalyn Murray O'Hair have presented the FCC with 287,000 signatures on petitions “to stop the reading of the Gospel of our Lord and Savior on the airwaves of America.”
The rumor says the FCC has granted a hearing to their petition, No. 2493.
Mr. Fiske says petition No. 2493 dates back to December 1974, when Jeremy D. Lansman and Lorenzo D. Milam asked the FCC to look into stations licensed to religious organizations. The petition was denied by the FCC on Aug. 1, 1975.
“Periodically since 1975, the FCC has received mail indicating that, in many parts of the country, there were rumors claiming the petition 2493 had called for an end to religious programs on radio and television. Such rumors are false,” says an FCC “fact sheet” on the subject.
The rumor has continued to circulate even though the atheist has not been seen for five years. Ms. O'Hair and her children — Jon Garth Murray and adopted daughter Robin Murray O'Hair — vanished from San Antonio along with $500,000 in gold coins in 1995. Federal authorities have speculated that they were abducted at gunpoint and murdered for the gold coins.
Ms. O'Hair is best known for a case that led to a 1963 Supreme Court decision that struck down organized prayer in public schools as unconstitutional.
The FCC fact sheet flatly denies that she ever asked the agency to “consider limiting or banning religious programs,” or had been granted a hearing to discuss the proposal.
“The rumor is not true,” the FCC says. “There is no federal law or regulation that gives the FCC the authority to prohibit radio and television stations from presenting religious programs.”
In fact, the Communications Act which created the FCC prohibits the agency “from censoring broadcast material and interfering with freedom of speech in broadcasting,” the FCC says.
Bottom line: The ghost of America's most famous atheist can't touch CBS' highest-rated show, and the No. 5 series this season.
“Touched by an Angel is not in any danger,” says Chris Ender, CBS Entertainment vice president for media relations. “There is nothing to this. Touched by an Angel will continue to be seen Sunday night at 8 p.m.”
Amen.
Norma note: Still no word from WLWT on the status of longtime anchor Norma Rashid, whose “extended vacation” is in its fifth week.
This much is known: Channel 5 has resumed co-anchoring the 11 p.m. news without Ms. Rashid, who has been the primary female anchor for 17 years.
Lisa Cooney has been paired with Dave Wagner this week. Courtis Fuller worked with Mr. Wagner last week.
News director Ken Jobe refused to discuss Ms. Rashid, whose contract expires later this year. She could not be reached for comment.
Channel 5 has returned to a late news co-anchor format “because I prefer a two-anchor broadcast,” Mr. Jobe says.
The hiring of former Channel 9 anchor Michelle Hopkins for the 6-7 a.m. news “has given us some flexibility” in scheduling Ms. Cooney and Mr. Fuller, he says.
Battery assaulted: NBC's search for a 9:30 p.m. Thursday comedy to bridge Frasier and ER continues, with the cancellation of Battery Park after four episodes.
The Elizabeth Perkins police sitcom lost nearly 30 percent of the Frasier audience opposite ABC's Who Wants to be a Millionaire. Reruns of Will & Grace or Frasier will air 9:30 p.m. Thursdays (Channels 5, 22) through May sweeps (April 27-May 24).
Around the dial: Tim Hedrick's Weather 201 repeats today (8:30 p.m., Channel 12) as the station airs its own syndicated movie, Joanne Woodward's Blind Spot (9 p.m., Channel 12) instead of CBS' The Mirror Has Two Faces with Barbra Streisand (8:30-11 p.m., Channel 7).
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