Although about TV Broadcasters, this testimony is an interesting read
pertaining to spectrum squatting.
From: Benjamin Lennett [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Sent: Wednesday, October 31, 2007 10:35 AM
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: MAP President Testifies Before FCC Localism Hearing
HYPERLINK "http://www.mediaaccess.org"Media Access Project
October 31, 2007
For Immediate Release
Testimony of Andrew Jay Schwartzman
President and CEO, Media Access Project
Presented to the Federal Communications Commission
October 31, 2007
For more than 30 years, I have sat on panels such as this. During that time,
I have heard the testimony of scores of talented, dedicated commercial
broadcasters who have provided meaningful service to their local
communities. Few, if any, are more committed to public service than my
friend Jim Goodmon.
My testimony today is not about those broadcasters. It is about the much
larger number of broadcasters who do little or nothing to address the
problems, needs and interests of the communities they are licensed to serve.
They are never invited to appear by the NAB or by the Commission. They are
the ones who should be called upon to explain why they lack any locally
originated programming other than advertisements. They should be asked how
they merit a free license for exclusive use of scarce publicly owned
spectrum when they don’t provide something - anything - designed to serve
the public interest, as opposed to their own private interests. Indeed,
although I hope this will soon change, as of now, the Commission’s policy is
that radio or TV stations carrying commercials or home shopping
presentations 24 hours a day are presumed to be operating in the public
interest.
Sadly, in the wake of the 1996 Telecommunications Act, and the consequent
growth of large regional and national ownership groups, the number of good
broadcasters is diminishing, and the number of mediocre broadcasters is
increasing.
Locally originated news and public affairs programming is but one important
measure of commitment to local service. There are about 1400 full power
commercial TV stations in the United States, and another five or six hundred
Class A stations. According to the RTNDA, less than 800 of those 2000
stations originate newscasts. 2000 minus 800 is 1200. How can the Commission
possibly make the statutorily mandated determination that those 1200
stations are operated in the public interest? I don’t think it can.
It is even worse with radio. Thousands of stations do little or nothing, and
thousands more outsource their newsgathering to a single company which
carries essentially identical newscasts on scores of stations. Indeed, one
company alone, Metro Networks (which is owned by Viacom, itself a group
owner) provides newscasts for more than 2000 of the nation’s radio stations.
Where is the viewpoint diversity in that?
The radio industry’s abandonment of local public service is especially worth
exploration. In many markets, commercial broadcasting has simply ceded
public service to non-commercial broadcasting. This is quite puzzling, since
we supposedly rely on marketplace forces to insure that public needs are
met. Yet there is clearly a huge audience of well-educated high income
listeners who have abandoned commercial radio and now rely on public
stations for local news and information.
As you have heard in other hearings, technologies marketed with such names
as “voice tracking” and “central casting” are used to cover up the fact that
many broadcasters export programming into local stations rather than create
it on site. This would be a much more useful hearing if the Commission were
to invite or - if necessary - compel the testimony of those licensees, whose
stations are run by senior management and program executives located
hundreds or thousands of miles away from the communities they are obligated
to serve.
How and why do those stations get their licenses renewed? It can’t be
because they carry public service announcements when they can’t sell the
airtime. Or maybe it can. I’d like to know. So would millions of American
citizens. After all, protection of their right to receive information is,
and ought to be, the primary goal of the Commission’s regulatory system.
What should the Commission do about this? Unless and until the Commission
has answers for these questions, it cannot complete this localism inquiry.
These are matters that you ought to address before, not after, it
contemplates further relaxation of its broadcast ownership rules.
That having been said, here is a list of things the Commission could do to
start fixing the problem:
• Develop a meaningful and much more transparent license renewal process
based on much more detailed information about broadcasters’ actual program
practices.
• Reduce the term of broadcast licenses to three years.
• Require every single licensee to carry minimum amounts of locally
originated, licensee produced, programming designed to address lo
