Fight Over ‘Balance’ Hurting Public TV on Hill, Says Lawson
Public TV stations will do what is necessary to preserve their editorial integrity, Assn. of Public TV Stations (APTS) Pres. John Lawson said. But “we have a very strong interest in not allowing this current controversy to become a partisan issue because it is not,” he told us, weighing in for the first time on the debate.
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Corp. for Public Bcstg. efforts to bring “balance” to public broadcasting programs has stirred controversy involving PBS, NPR and even Congress. Urged by 2 key House Democrats, CPB’s own inspector gen. is investigating moves by Republican CPB Chmn. Tomlinson the lawmakers said could violate federal law.
APTS recognizes the need for “balance” in programming and a CPB role in fostering balance, Lawson said, but “we are ferocious in doing what is necessary to preserve the reality and appearance of editorial independence.” He said he fears the controversy could become a partisan battle. The APTS board, he said, is deliberating the issue, including CPB reforms proposed to the Senate Commerce Committee.
Asked about the squabble’s impact on public TV’s Capitol Hill agenda, Lawson said, “it certainly isn’t helping.” Though there’s no direct backlash from either party, the brouhaha has created “uncertainty and caused some members of Congress to pause when we have asked them to support our agenda. So in that sense it is damaging.”
Lawson said APTS hasn’t started negotiating with satellite providers to carry public TV stations’ digital signals. “We are actually doing our homework to better understand their technology and capacity, so we can really understand what to ask for.” But, he said, ATPS and PBS are talking with telcos about carriage on their new platforms. As for whether the Bells had sought support for state-level franchise law changes they're pushing, he said telcos haven’t “asked us for political support. However, they have expressed a strong interest in carrying our content.”
He said APTS has had “promising contacts” with the American Cable Assn., which represents smaller cable systems: “We hope to begin some substantive discussions with them this summer.” In Feb., APTS and PBS struck a deal with the NCTA for carriage on major cable systems of public TV’s digital signals, including multicast channels. The deal recently was approved by public TV stations and the MSOs involved.
Public broadcasters are bracing for a hard fight on the Hill even to retain funding for CPB and other entities, said Lawson. The House situation is very challenging, he said. With the budget approved there virtually mirroring the president’s budget, it really “ties the hands” of the Labor-HHS Subcommittee that funds CPB. The president’s budget proposed to kill advance funding for CPB. In the Senate, public broadcasters continue to “maintain strong bipartisan support,” Lawson said, but the president wants to eliminate or slash funding for 150 domestic programs: “So our challenge in the Senate is maintaining funding for public broadcasting as a priority for both Republican and Democrats.”