I’m a Howard Stern addict- so I can’t miss talking about Howard’s confrontation with FCC Commissioner Colin Powell’s Son.

Stern: You know, the thing that amazes me about you is, you continually fine me but you’re afraid to go to court with me and I’ll explain myself if you give me a second:

Fine after fine came and we tried to go to court with you to find out about obscenity and what your line was and whether our show was indecent, which I don’t think it is. And you do something really sneaky behind the scenes. You continue to block Viacom from buying new stations until we pay those fines.

You are afraid to go court. You are afraid to get a ruling time and time again.

When will you allow this to go to court and stop practicing your form of racketeering that you do by making stations pay up or you hold up their license renewal?

Powell: First of all, that’s flatly false.

Stern: It’s not false. It’s true.

Powell: I’m afraid it is. There’s no reason why Viacom or any other company who feels that they have been wrongly fined can’t sue us in court. We have no basis whatsoever to prevent them from going to court.

Stern: You’re lying. I’ve lived through your fines, Michael. And Mel Karmazin came to me one day and said, Howard, we’re gonna have to pay up some sort of cockamame bunch of fines that we don’t think we’re wrong because we can’t get our paperwork done. We are finding it increasingly difficult to buy radio stations. I know you’re not telling the truth. And I question why you are selected to be one who is the FCC commissioner….

This is a big allegation, and Stern has made it several times on his show over the years. Previously he’s been hesitant to say who at Viacom told him this, but now that Karmazin is out and Stern is on his way to satellite he’s swinging away.

The FCC’s actions, aside from the racketeering charge, amount to regulating content for people who can’t afford satellite or cable. I contend that those people want swearing, nudity, and violence on their TV screens just as much as anyone else. Programming for the neglected six-year-old who might be watching is killing broadcast television. As cable and satellite grow the FCC will want to regulate content there as well. It’s up to us to stop them.

Check out the full transcript. Boingboing has links to the audio.