WASHINGTON, DC — Maybe it was the back-to-school specials that did it, but the Federal Communication Commission reports that its third-quarter indecency complaints soared in September of 2006.Released recently, the FCC’s amended numbers of complaints reveal what will surprise few: that although there is an impressive number of obscenity complaints, the vast majority results from organized activist group complaint drives.

Although the FCC hears complaints about communication issues as wide ranging as cell phone billing and electrical interference, groups such as the Parents Television Council are specifically fascinated by programming that they believe children are likely to view and be harmed by.

When the TPC chooses a media option to campaign against, it keeps copious and exacting notes of each and every step involved in a sexual act (from the procuring of condoms to the thrusting of pelvises to the final gasp of pleasure) and every interpreted act of violence (including surgery), as well as a precise recounting of each potentially offensive word. In addition to a demand for “Consumer Cable Choice,” which would allow individual cable subscribers to pick and choose which channels they subscribed to and which were not piped into their homes, two campaigns are directed against Nip/Tuck and Rescue Me. In addition to archived video clips, every offensive act and word is available online at the organization’s supposedly “family friendly” website.

Campaigns such as this appear largely responsible for surges in indecency complaints to the FCC, which received a total of 162,170 such complaints between July and September 2006. Given that only 179 people complained during July and 404 during August, one could conclude that those months were relatively pristine and well-behaved. September, however, must have been absolutely depraved, however, given that 161,587 complaints were turned in — a 40,000-percent increase over the previous months. Now, that’s entertainment.

These numbers are increasingly fascinating when compared to the number of people who complained about their cable bills. Considering all the filth supposedly cluttering up the cable lines, only 100 people were upset enough to officially grumble about how much it cost them.