Are Broadcasters Delivering on Public Interest Obligations?

At the Federal Communications Commission's Serving the Public Interest in the Digital Era workshop, Media Bureau Deputy Chief Robert Ratcliffe was asked by moderator Steve Waldman, who is heading up the FCC's future of media review, how many stations had been denied renewal for not fulfilling their public service obligations. Ratcliffe said only one in terms of programming, and that the optimist's view was that broadcasters were doing a good job. Ratcliffe said that the FCC did have to balance its interests with the public's in what broadcasters were programming and the First Amendment's protections of that decision-making.

Former FCC General Counsel Henry Geller said there had never been real standards, and there had been less guidance after the deregulation of the 1980's, when the requirement that broadcasters list programming in various areas was scrapped and renewals became essentially a postcard to the commission. He said that when the FCC did try to set standard for kids programming, broadcasters skirted the requirement with shows of suspect educational content, relegated to weekends, and during preemptable time. Geller said that he thought the FCC's attempt to set quantifiable standards would never work because the FCC was working against the driving commercial interests of stations and was doing so in a First Amendment area. Geller suggested that the FCC drop its public interest standard and charge a 5% spectrum fee, then turn that over to public broadcasting, which he said wants to do kids and cultural and other programming. "The system we have now has not worked," he said.

Media Access Project President Andrew Schwartzman said that the best broadcasters do a "superb job," and said those are the ones who testify at workshops. He also said broadcasters tend to trumpet their admittedly magnificent work during emergencies. But Schwartzman said the FCC has to focus on the worst broadcasters, who do not meet the needs of their communities. He said some stations do absolutely nothing local, "but that is what the system tolerates." He opined the end of minimum requirements for news and public affairs and the lack of affirmative ascertainment by the FCC. "The license renewal process is broken," he said. With license renewal cases going back to 2003 still pending, he argued that the message to broadcasters is that if you have a multimillion dollar deal to get done, the FCC will do it in a few months, but that a license challenge will languish for years.

Schwartzman said Robert Ratcliffe had left a misimpression by ticking off broadcasters affirmative obligations -- EEO, kids TV, political time -- because it suggested the FCC was actually policing those obligations. Schwartzman wants licenses shortened from eight years to three, audits of 10% of the stations for compliance with public interest obligations, and put teeth into those obligations. He also called on the commission to find that primarily home shopping stations are not operating in the public interest.