A federal appeals court on Monday threw out a $550,000 indecency fine against CBS Corp. for the 2004 Super Bowl halftime show that ended with Janet Jackson's breast-baring "wardrobe malfunction."

The three-judge panel of the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that the Federal Communications Commission "acted arbitrarily and capriciously" in issuing the fine for the fleeting image of nudity.

The 90 million people watching the Super Bowl, many of them children, heard Justin Timberlake sing, "Gonna have you naked by the end of this song," as he reached for Jackson's bustier.

The court found that the FCC deviated from its nearly 30-year practice of fining indecent broadcast programming only when it was so "pervasive as to amount to 'shock treatment' for the audience."

"Like any agency, the FCC may change its policies without judicial second-guessing," the court said. "But it cannot change a well-established course of action without supplying notice of and a reasoned explanation for its policy departure."

The 3rd Circuit judges -- Chief Judge Anthony J. Scirica, Judge Marjorie O. Rendell and Judge Julio M. Fuentes -- also ruled that the FCC deviated from its long-held approach of applying identical standards to words and images when reviewing complaints of indecency.

"The Commission's determination that CBS's broadcast of a nine-sixteenths of one second glimpse of a bare female breast was actionably indecent evidenced the agency's departure from its prior policy," the court found. "Its orders constituted the announcement of a policy change -- that fleeting images would no longer be excluded from the scope of actionable indecency."

FIELDER-CIVIL SENTENCED

Amy Winehouse's husband was sentenced Monday to 27 months in jail for assault and obstructing justice.

Blake Fielder-Civil has admitted beating up pub manager James King in a barroom fight in 2006 and then offering him $400,000 to keep quiet about it.

Judge David Radford told Fielder-Civil he had behaved in a "gratuitous, cowardly and disgraceful" way.

Winehouse, who has regaled concert audiences for months with appeals for the release of "my Blake," was not at the London court.

Fielder-Civil has spent almost nine months in jail since his arrest, and could be freed in December, once he has completed half his sentence.

CONAN TO TAKE OVER

Conan O'Brien will take over the "Tonight" Show next June -- and what happens to deposed host Jay Leno after that is anybody's guess.

Leno's last show will be Friday, May 29, and O'Brien will start the following Monday, June 1, NBC executives told a Television Critics Association meeting Monday.

NBC is angling to keep Leno with the network but the late-night king has indicated he's ready to jump ship. Eager NBC competitors, including other networks and syndicators, are eager to help him make the leap.

EBERT AND ROEPER DONE

Chicago Sun-Times film critic Roger Ebert says he's cutting ties with the television show that he and the late Gene Siskel made famous.

In an e-mail to The Associated Press on Monday, Ebert said Disney-ABC Domestic Television had decided to take the show "in a new direction" and he won't be associated with it.

His announcement came a day after Chicago Sun-Times columnist Richard Roeper said he was leaving the nationally syndicated "At the Movies With Ebert & Roeper."

Roeper said in a statement Sunday that he had failed to agree on a contract extension with Disney-ABC Domestic Television so his last appearance on the show will air the weekend of Aug. 16-17.