December 17th / 19th
"FCC Proposes Test for Broadcasters"
In March of this year the FCC finally got around to holding a workshop on
how to reform local television. At the event, commissioner Michael Copps
berated broadcasters for "dropping the ball on public interest programming".
The FCC also invited testimony from industry spokespersons as well as media
analysts such as Andrew Schwartzman (President of The Media Access
Project) who noted that, "Some TV stations do absolutely nothing local".
Schwartzman called on the FCC to conduct audits of TV stations to make sure they are
in compliance with their public interest obligations. Schwartzman, Copps
and others also recognized that so-called local news is no longer very
local, and that broadcasters try and pass their newscasts off as public affairs
programming (which it is not). Clearly, corporate greed and a lack of
federal oversight had failed the American viewing public who still owns the
airwaves, but no longer has any input as to what is transmitted over them.
I was encouraged by the rhetoric, but many months went by, and no one was
acting upon the proposals and concerns put forth at the workshop. Then,
earlier this month, Copps stepped up his crusade for localism by proposing
that the FCC conduct a "Public Value Test" (PVT) of every broadcast station at
relicensing time. Under his proposal, any broadcaster who failed the test,
would lose its license. Copps floated his revolutionary idea during a
speech to the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism. But no sooner
had he left the stage, than the internet was abuzz with maniacal criticism
from Tea Party-like columnists and bloggers whose rants incited virtual
riots. Sites like MRC and Democracy Now skillfully took the Commissioner's
words out of context, and warned real Americans to oppose a government
takeover of television. These were typical Palinesque attacks that conveniently
ignored the facts in order to pander to a disenfranchised populace. The irony
is that the populace has been disenfranchised by the very corporations who
Copps seeks to reform.
In his speech the Commissioner noted that the FCC was guilty of having
endorsed a kind of "consolidation mania" where fewer and fewer companies are
allowed to own more and more broadcast outlets. As a by-product of that
mania, 35,000 members of the local news media have lost their jobs in the past
three years alone. Collaterally, local TV coverage of state government has
been slashed by one third. And, Copps also cited a recent Annenberg report
which found that the average thirty-minute local TV newscast only contains
about thirty seconds of local government coverage. Meanwhile, as
Schwartzman had noted, local public affairs programs have all but disappeared from
the broadcast landscape.
Copps' proposed "Public Value Test" would help to restore localism to
local television. And despite what you may read on the internet, the
Commissioner's proposal will in no way allow government to interfere in the content
of local programming. Just the opposite. "PVT" will force corporate owners
to better meet the needs of viewers in each local market by requiring them
to make, "meaningful commitments to news and public affairs programming".
According to Copps, "Increasing the human and financial resources going into
news would be one way to benchmark progress. Producing more local, civic
affairs programming would be another". In fact, the Commissioner would like
to see 25% of the prime time schedule be produced locally or independently,
and that means more programs like "Triad Today", which is sadly still the
only locally-produced public affairs program on commercial television in the
Piedmont.
TV station owners and their lobbyists are already lining up to fight the
kind of reform Copps is advancing, but how are they going to convince the
public that spending money on public service is a bad thing? After all, the
Public Value Test would, as the Commissioner said, simply "uphold the
original licensing bargain between broadcasters and the people", a bargain which
allowed TV stations to lease public airwaves in exchange for producing
programs that serve the local community. It's time for us to hold station
owners to their part of that bargain.
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