FCC forces affiliates to share ad info

Now you can find out who paid for that political advertisement you’ve seen a hundred times – and how much they paid – before the commercial ends.

The Federal Communications Commission began requiring affiliates of the top four broadcast networks in the top 50 television markets to post the contents of their public inspection files on the FCC’s website. The rule was approved in April despite opposition from broadcasters. Broadcast television stations have kept a paper public inspection file on the premises for decades. The file contains the station’s license, permits, details about the owner and other items meant to ensure that the station is serving the needs of its community in exchange for a license to use the airwaves. Children’s programming reports, documents detailing the racial makeup of the station’s employees and a copy of the FCC’s manual, “The Public and Broadcasting,” which explains the rest of the contents can also be found in public file. The political portion of the file contains a record of every request for advertising and whether the request was accepted. If it was, the file contains details of the purchase – all the way down to how many spots will air during a particular show, how much was paid and by whom. The Enquirer visited our local stations to make copies of these political advertising contracts. We gathered everything prior to last Thursday on paper, because the FCC’s order is not retroactive. In the process, we found that WLWT (Channel 5) and WCPO (Channel 9) were not including all of the required information in their files. Specifically, they didn’t include the “class of time” purchased.