The Parents Television Council grassroots chapters in Utah are urging the FCC to review the license of CBS affiliate, KUTV Salt Lake City, Utah, for “failing to adhere to its community standards of decency.”

PTC said: “This week, CBS offered a written excuse for its failure to implement terms of a consent decree it negotiated with the FCC in November of 2004. Under the terms of the decree, CBS agreed to pay a fine and take remedial action in the event that it violated the broadcast decency law and received a Notice of Apparent Liability (NAL) from the FCC.”

PTC says that less than a month after the consent decree was signed, CBS re-aired a Without a Trace episode that prompted thousands of indecency complaints due to scenes of a teen orgy party. The episode aired on Dec. 31, 2004, during the 9:00 pm MT hour on KUTV. This resulted in a NAL issued by the FCC on March 15, 2006. Members of the PTC Salt Lake/Provo Chapter and the Cache Valley Chapter filed petitions in August 2006 with the FCC to revoke the broadcast license of KUTV, then owned by CBS (it sold the station to Four Points Media in February 2007),  for airing content that violated the broadcast decency law.

According to PTC President Tim Winter, “CBS' response to the FCC's inquiry is utterly disgraceful. By saying they did nothing wrong by not taking any action after receiving the NAL, they have openly and defiantly breached both the spirit and the letter of the agreement that they freely negotiated with the FCC. Remember that the CBS Consent Decree summarily dismissed thousands of broadcast indecency complaints related to the original broadcast of the Without a Trace episode at issue; so then how could its re-airing not trigger the remedial action specified in the Consent Decree?"