I have no idea why anything by Nervous Norvous would ever be banned. Dr. Demento played his stuff freely in the 70's.

If you're on Student Radio and you get on well with the music director you can pretty much play what you want. In theory there are things you could broadcast for which you as DJ and other station executives can go to jail, but if you haven't flagrantly flouted the FCC's rules and can demonstrate redeeming social/ artistic content you are safe. If you simply hurl obscenities into the microphone you are not safe. I had a show for a few years and no one from the station ever gave me any trouble or review because the show started at 10 PM and ended at 1 AM. They were in bed!

Banning in our societies is due to commercial radio protecting its revenue streams. I find this understandable and yet pathetic.

Public radio in the US wants to be considered a valuable community resource, so typically exercises caution, including warning listeners that a particular portion of a broadcast may consider language that could be considered objectionable. On the other hand, it is perfectly appropriate to air a show on banned music and in so doing, air the banned music.

The CBC seems to be much less concerned with for example quotations of on-the-street interviews. It so happened that the public broadcasting station in Anchorage stopped carrying CBC Sunday morning because of the language it carried. (This was chicken behavior on the part of the local NPR program director). But the point is, these things come down primarilly as judgement calls as to what is best for a particular station or network.

The current reaction to 'nipplegate' is still in effect, and is mostly kneejerk cowardice on the part of radio executives. Again, commercial interest maintains. They are perfectly happy for Howard Stern to broadcast when the income outstrips the damage. They are perfectly happy to be 'shocked, shocked' that this sort of thing has been going on, when the worm turns.

Having said that, there are worse things out there than commercial self interest.

If you live in a city with a university station, you are more likely to hear all sorts of banned stuff. Not only did we have no commercial interests to protect, we wanted listeners to tune in to hear stuff they would no way hear on the main airwaves. There is also a late night 'safe harbor' period where we can air, well, pretty much anything. I got away with the Rudy Schwartz Project which was very very rude to Tipper Gore in very plain language (on account of her attempt to have rock lyrics banned and her head-to-head confrontation, so to speak, with Frank Zappa). I could have aired George Carlin's Seven Deadly Words as long as I inserted a warning.

I love the subject of what you can and can't broadcast. The power of language is such that you can state perfectly obscene concepts without using any obscene language. You can state it such that it is a violation of FCC regulations, and you can state it such that is isn't. Remember the Monty Python skit with the man you couldn't say the letter 'c'. The other man says, well, why can't you use the letter 'k'? "Why, yes, I kan, what a silly bunt!"

(I never actually heard that one on the air, though)