Political Ad File Proposal From Broadcasters Seen Guiding FCC Order
FCC work on making all TV stations put political-ad files online, so campaign buys of spots around the time of elections can be more closely tracked, likely will be guided by the industry’s first proposal (CD Feb 15 p20) for how to manage the files, said agency and industry officials. Officials at public interest groups that have long wanted everything in station’s public files to go online said the plan from 11 companies is a start to a dialogue with industry. Industry officials said it’s unclear if other stations and the NAB will back the proposal for broadcasters to aggregate information on ad buys without disclosing how much campaigns spent on each commercial. At first glance the proposal’s an interesting one, and may add corporate backers, industry officials said.
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The official whose FCC report on media’s future recommended putting all public files on the commission’s website said the proposal from companies with more than 200 TV stations could provide more helpful information to the public. The companies proposed (http://xrl.us/bmshpc) to list “the aggregate amount of money paid for the spots” by each candidate since the online public file was last updated. “What’s intriguing about the proposal is that this could actually be a more effective form of disclosure” by totaling what each candidate spends on announcements and providing the information in a more-accessible form, said Steve Waldman, who wrote the report on media’s future under the auspices of FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski. That could make the information readily searchable, versus broadcasters giving files to the commission that couldn’t be searched, said Waldman, who left the commission late last year and is a visiting scholar at Columbia University’s journalism school.
"Getting it in a searchable database versus not is a big difference,” Waldman said. “What’s better: Less data in a searchable database, or more data in PDFs that are not searchable? I don’t know.” Waldman hopes to hear from stakeholders such as groups that advocate government transparency about whether the “tradeoff” is worth it, he said. He met last week with the companies that made the proposal Wednesday to the commission. Among signers of the filing in docket 00-168 are Belo Corp., Cox Media Group, E.W. Scripps Co., Gannett, Hearst TV, Meredith Corp., Washington Post Co. and Raycom Media. Many of the companies have executives on NAB boards, and the head of Meredith’s TV business is chairman of the association’s joint board. NAB is reviewing the proposal, a spokesman said.
Media Bureau officials want to wrap up drafting an order to require much of public files to go online, agency and industry officials watching the proceeding said. They said the officials seem keen to require at least some information that’s now kept in paper copy at TV stations’ main studios in political-ad files to go online. It’s possible the broadcasters’ proposal will be adopted in some form, rather than requiring the entire political-ad file to go online as the commission has proposed, because it has the backing of some of the industry and would let the agency move forward, agency and industry officials said. A bureau spokeswoman declined to comment.
The rulemaking didn’t propose onerous rules, but the plan is the start of a dialogue, said Waldman and nonprofit officials. “There is certainly room for discussion here” and “it’s very heartening because it’s the first such proposal” from stations, said Free Press Senior Policy Counsel Corie Wright: “But the really simple solution is the one the FCC has put forward” and making the entire public file electronic would “save you the trouble of counting things” twice by keeping one file at the station and giving other data to the agency. The plan is “an opening bid” which “comes to opening a conversation that says other than no” to any rules by broadcasters, Wright added.
"It’s always good when there’s more dialogue, as opposed to the position the broadcasters always take, which is an absolute no” on such disclosure, said Campaign Legal Center Policy Director Meredith McGehee. The plan is “not acceptable, but it’s not crazy -- it’s not something that’s a throwaway,” she said: “It’s so incredible” and “defying common sense and reality that broadcasters are saying they want to remain in a paper world.” During the time around elections when campaigns can buy ad time for the lowest unit charge, the political file should be updated online daily, not just immediately before elections as the broadcasters proposed, McGehee said. She also said the commission should host the data, not broadcasters’ websites, as the plan said should be an option.