Janet Jackson Wardrobe Malfunction,Which was broadcast live on February 1, 2004 from Houston, Texas on the CBS television network in the United States, was noted for a controversial halftime show in which Janet Jackson’s breast, adorned with a nipple shield, was exposed by Justin Timberlake for about half a second, in what was later referred to as a “wardrobe malfunction”. The incident, sometimes referred to as Nipplegate or Tittygate, was widely discussed. Along with the rest of the halftime show, it led to an immediate crackdown and widespread debate on perceived indecency in broadcasting, and resulted in a record $550,000 fine levied by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) against CBS, as well as an increase of the FCC fine per indecency violation from $27,500 to $325,000. Additionally, some commentators saw the halftime show as a sign of decreasing morality in the national culture.

The halftime show was produced by MTV and was supposedly themed around the network’s Rock the Vote campaign, though the theme was quickly dispensed with in the first minute of the show without any mentions after that point [10]; at the time, both MTV and CBS were owned by the media group Viacom. In January 2006, the Viacom companies were split into separate entities, with CBS becoming part of the CBS Corporation and MTV becoming part of the new Viacom group. Following the incident, the NFL announced that MTV, which also produced the halftime show for Super Bowl XXXV, would never be involved in another halftime show.

Since November 2004, CBS has challenged its fine for the halftime show on the grounds that the broadcast was unintentional and thus exempt from indecency regulation.[12] In July 2008, the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit voided the FCC’s fine,[13] but in May 2009 the Supreme Court vacated that judgment and sent the case back to the Third Circuit for reconsideration