The ultimatum left broadcasters scrambling to find creative ways around the ban, leading them to play recordings of horses galloping, roosters crowing, engines roaring or guns being fired — a common sound in the capital — to signal the start of various broadcasts.
In a unanimous three-judge decision, the Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit in New York said that the F.C.C.'s current policy created "a chilling effect that goes far beyond the fleeting expletives at issue here" because it left broadcasters without a reliable guide to what the commission would find offensive.
All of which leaves broadcasters with little real grasp of what is allowed and what is not.
Viewers who subscribe to cable switch between regulatory regimes by changing channels, he said, leaving broadcasters at "an inexplicable competitive disadvantage".
Some of the wireless companies that bought that spectrum have not developed all of it, leaving broadcasters wary of giving up more of their holdings to companies that might simply warehouse it, industry officials say.
Congress in 1997 passed a plan to clear channels 52 to 69 (leaving broadcasters with 77% of their total spectrum) for new technologies.* But the muddled scheme lacked a meaningful deadline by which broadcasters must vacate the air.
A local journalist, contacted by AFP, said employees had left the broadcaster's offices as RSP reinforcements arrived.
Sharon Baylay, the BBC's former director of marketing, left the broadcaster in 2010 with a payoff of more than £300,000 having only joined the BBC in May 2009.
Last week, ITV's lead football anchor Adrian Chiles suddenly left the broadcaster in mysterious circumstances and was replaced by BBC Radio 5 Live's Mark Pougatch.
It was a swift return to the media sector for the former ITV chief executive, who left the broadcaster with a £4.2m payoff in January.
