While the FCC has relaxed rules against profanity on cable and network television over the years, the same can’t be said for terrestrial radio. The George Carlin bit about the seven dirty words still holds true for folks occupying the AM and FM frequencies, much to the chagrin of Andrew Fillipponi.
On Thursday’s edition of The PM Team with Poni & Mueller on 93.7 The Fan in Pittsburgh, caller George in Aliquippa had to get dumped after using the word “shitty.”
Both Fillipponi and co-host Chris Mueller groaned initially, knowing they can’t get away with the use of that kind of profanity on the air. Poni said the terrestrial radio rules have been so ingrained in his brain that when he did an interview on SiriusXM earlier that day, he stopped himself from cursing because he thought he would get the show he was on in trouble.
“I was on satellite radio for an interview today, and I wasn’t sure if I could get away with swearing on there,” he said.
Mueller suggested he should have done a bit with the show, trying to figure out what level of cursing he could get away with.
But Andrew Fillipponi noticed that even though on other SiriusXM channels there’s no filtering of adult language, you don’t hear that kind of talk on the sports channels.
“I have satellite in the car. I’ve never heard a sports talk radio show on there curse, unless it’s (Pat) McAfee,” Fillipponi said before shifting focus to Pat McAfee. “But he has his own set of rules including being on ESPN and swearing.”
The Pat McAfee Show aired on SiriusXM Mad Dog Sports Radio from 2020-22. Profanity has always been a part of the show, so the laxed rules on swearing on satellite made it a good place for McAfee to be.
But as part of the deal to bring McAfee to ESPN, the network allows the use of profanity over the air up to the word “fuck.” That’s the one word that gets bleeped, and McAfee and company have tried to be cognizant of making sure they don’t slip up and use it while the show is on ESPN from noon-2 p.m.
The point being that George in Aliquippa would’ve been totally fine continuing his point if he had called into Pat McAfee made Fillipponi wonder about the double standard at play.
“But why is it OK for McAfee to say the same word that George said at 1 o’clock on ESPN, but if George says it with us at 2:55, and it goes out over the air, we get in trouble,” he asked.
Mueller said they would be able to curse too if their show was exclusive to a streaming platform like YouTube.
“I know this much, if you and I only did this show streaming, we could say whatever the hell we wanted,” he said.
Andrew Fillipponi wasn’t enthused by the idea.
“Don’t give our bosses any ideas for bonus added work,” he said.
