Fox's Liguori, About to Step Into the Senate's Line of Fire

On the other hand, he noted, it is a "creative beacon" within the TV community, having won Emmys last season for best drama series and best actor in a drama series.

Liguori will follow the guest of honor, FCC Chairman Martin, who recently unveiled his report "Violent Television Programming and Its Impact on Children," in which he made his pitch to be given the power to regulate violence on television for the sake of the children, in much the same way the FCC regulates indecency on TV.

Martin will argue the FCC needs to be given the authority to protect, for instance, the 360,000 of the country's more than 40 million 2-to-11-year-olds who this past season watched Fox's "24."

It's going to be a tough act for Liguori to follow. Martin wants to come back strong, having recently been spanked by the 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals in New York, which dismissed as "arbitrary and capricious" the FCC's decision to fine stations affiliated with Liguori's network for having aired the 2002 and '03 Billboard Music Awards, which included Cher's colorful response to those who say she's washed up, and Nicole Richie's reflections on the challenges of cleaning cowpie off a Prada purse.

Featuring Liguori and Martin at the same hearing is pure Hollywood casting.

Martin is sure to mention, as he did in a statement accompanying his study, that while research is inconclusive as to whether watching violent programming actually causes aggressive behavior in children, studies by the surgeon general and the Federal Trade Commission found exposure to violence on TV is associated with an increase in aggressive or violent behavior in children.

Oh yes, he did.

And, then he added, "In other words, the evidence does not prove causation, but it does demonstrate a strong correlation."

After which, Liguori is expected to toss back to the committee those very same two studies and the FCC's own to assert that, while there may be a connection between television and violence, without that proven causal link, trying to impose content limits on the media is pure bunk -- not to mention a violation of the First Amendment.

"We all agree that we should be safeguarding children from inappropriate programming," Liguori said yesterday.

"Their instincts come from the right place," he said of the Senate committee, adding, "We share that same instinct." Then he began to spout statistics: