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Take Back the Airwaves
As the TV pundits on the networks gab about the tens of millions of dollars raised by the top presidential candidates, what they don't talk about is where that money is going: to their own networks.
Money is now considered the single most important factor in our electoral process. Ideas and issues take a back seat to the bottom line. This prostitution of our electoral process has one key culprit: television advertising.
Political advertising makes or breaks candidates, and it takes a huge amount of money to implement a national advertising strategy. Now more than 20 states are piling onto Feb. 5, 2008, as their primary day, including states like California and New York with large, expensive media markets. The early, deciding role of money and television advertising in determining who gets to run for president is secure.
The costs of running for federal office have been skyrocketing. More than $880 million was raised by the 2004 presidential campaigns. The 2008 election is expected to cost more than $1 billion. Sixty percent will be spent on advertising.
The citizens are the losers, and the broadcasters and elite political consultants are the winners. We ought to turn this around. The public owns the airwaves that are being used by the big corporate broadcasters. The broadcasters, like NBC, ABC and CBS, have an obligation to use those airwaves "in the public interest, convenience and necessity." These profitable corporations take these public airwaves for free, then peddle them for exorbitant advertising rates.
We have to ask, as U.S. servicemen and -women are being killed overseas ostensibly in defense of democracy, why are our airwaves, the single most important method by which Americans get information about choosing the future president, being held hostage by corporate broadcasters?
The answer: the NAB, or the National Association of Broadcasters, which convenes its annual trade show in Las Vegas next week. The NAB is one of Washington's largest and most influential lobbying groups, representing the owners of TV and radio stations. For the tens of millions of dollars in lobbying and campaign contributions they dole out annually, broadcasters get back billions in corporate welfare, in the form of legislation that protects their ability to sell ads over the public airwaves.
Some bold members of Congress have tried throughout the decades to end this stranglehold on the political process. Sen. Bill Bradley tried in the 1990s. He said then: "Today's Senate campaigns function as collection agencies for broadcasters. You simply transfer money from contributors to television stations."
In 2003, Sen. Russ Feingold, along with Sens. Richard Durbin, Jon Corzine and John McCain, submitted the Our Democracy, Our Airwaves Act, which proposed a system of advertising vouchers for candidates. Feingold said at the time: "The public owns the airwaves and licenses them to broadcasters. Broadcasters pay nothing for their use of this scarce and very valuable public resource. Their only 'payment' is a promise to serve the public interest, a promise that often goes unfulfilled."
The senators wanted to close a loophole allowing broadcasters to extract top dollar for desirable ad slots. Existing law compels broadcasters to give candidates the lowest ad rate for a given market, but as a result the broadcasters threaten to relegate the ads to the middle of the night. So candidates pony up. A 2002 study by the Alliance for Better Campaigns even showed that stations were hiking ad rates in the lead-up to elections by as much as 53 percent.
Now Durbin is taking another crack at the NAB. He has introduced the Fair Elections Now Act, which would both grant vouchers for broadcast ads and mandate a 20 percent discount beyond the lowest unit cost of ads near primary and election times.
While the public airwaves are sold off to the highest campaign bidders (often to push negative ads, but that is another issue), the broadcasters fail miserably to report on the campaigns. After all, if the broadcasters fulfilled their public-interest obligations and actually reported fully and consistently on the various candidates and their issues, and not just on the campaign horse race, then there would be less need for campaigns to buy ads in the first place.
More than $2 billion will be poured into the broadcasters' coffers in the 2008 election cycle, almost all for use of the airwaves that the public owns. Imagine what could be done with that money—to register and educate voters, to fully equip polling stations with functioning voting machines, to produce many vigorous debates and public forums.
The American public is being robbed by the National Association of Broadcasters. It's time to take back the airwaves.
Amy Goodman is the host of "Democracy Now!," a daily international TV/radio news hour airing on 500 stations in North America.
© 2007 Amy Goodman; distributed by King Features Syndicate
20 Comments so far
Show AllFor profit networks are now guilty of conspiracy to commit genocide and racketeering. We must take the " business " out of politics and media.
Culture written by money differs from culture written by soul. We had a great self propelled culture until rock and roll was bought out by corpos in the 70's. Ever since then, our thoughts have been scripted by those selling us shit. And we end up losing the Magna Carta in 20 years.
If you want to hear new creative impulse, organic and unpolluted by the contrivance of the status quo, you'll have to listen to community radio. Or the bumper music on " Democracy Now. " Sad.
If we are ever to play the radio ( TV, News paper, etc )again, and not have it play US, we'll have to do it out of love, cause the money thing has shown us its fangs.
This would be a great step to take the profit out of politics. Citizen activism and plenty of it seem the tool to bring the huge amount of pressure it will take to get so many hands out of the cookie jar.
John Freeman
"After all, if the broadcasters fulfilled their public-interest obligations and actually reported fully and consistently on the various candidates and their issues, and not just on the campaign horse race, then there would be less need for campaigns to buy ads in the first place."
Like a Joseph Heller Catch-22 joke played on the diseased body of American democracy.
Why not CHARGE broadcasters for their use of OUR airwaves?
Each station owner would bid on the station's frequency or channel for a five year lease. At the end of the lease period the owner would have to match the highest bid on that lease for its renewal. The revenue could be used (totally, or in part) for financing election ads on the air.
Alternatively, channels/frequencies could be granted by lot, to LOCAL people or organizations, who would be obligated to run election ads without cost.
Why can't I have a frequency to broadcast in MY community, rather than some huge, absent corporate owner?
When the profit is taken out of broadcasting then maybe theprofiteers will be gone from broadcasting. The Durbin-Feingold measure is a useful first step to what sould be the forced publicization of the airwaves as done by the BBC, CBC, and ABC (British, Canadian, and Australian Broadcasting corporations respectively).
Right now we have it exactly backwards in the U.S. "Public" radio and TV (which really isn't "public" as they all go schlepping to various government and corporate, and think-tank-foundation intersts for money)is usually one station per market and the rest of the available frequencies are doled out to the profiteers.
If we reversed this and made people pay a yearly licensing fee for the privilige of each receiver they owned, and used public funding to make up the difference, how much more air time would now be available for "narrow casting"--translate giving a voice to the voiceless.
This is a great public commons that can no longer be entrusted to its current custodians. We need to agitate and press for this change. The profiteers can just go on satellite and/or the Net for their for profit businesses (and we sahould make sure these are regulated to maintain neutrality of access.
The public owns the airwaves that are being used by the big corporate broadcasters. The broadcasters, like NBC, ABC and CBS, have an obligation to use those airwaves "in the public interest, convenience and necessity." These profitable corporations take these public airwaves for free, then peddle them for exorbitant advertising rates.
Wasn't it Bill Clinton under a Republican-controlled Congress who signed-off on giving these corporations "The Peoples" airwaves?
"The American public is being robbed by the National Association of Broadcasters. It's time to take back the airwaves."
We're also being robbed by our own government who gave away "The Peoples" airwaves to profit-making corporations. The same government that gave oil rights to profit-making corporations that for decades have been pumping oil from public lands.
This is CORPORATE WELFARE. Hundreds of Billions, if not trillions of dollars have been made by a small group of elitists who are benefiting from what belongs to ALL THE PEOPLE; and to make matters worse, they are the same people who complain about having to pay taxes for social welfare programs that benefit ALL THE PEOPLE.
If this took place 200 hundreds years ago, they would all be indicted for treason.
Love love love Amy. But frequency broadcasting is getting smaller and smaller in the rear view mirror and regulating it will not work unless all cable channels as well as broadcast media are dealt with on an equal basis. That would require new law. This problem is bigger than the airwaves.
It's a shame that legislation seems the answer to this election/money dilemma. The discussion should run deeper into why the FCC was created in the first place; that is to insure the public airwaves remain public property and used in the public interest. We really have nobody to blame but ourselves for cookie-cutter network and syndication programming that delivers fair, balanced, and thoroughly informative product to nobody. When was the last time anyone called a radio or television outlet and simply asked when their license was coming up for renewal? When was the last time any private citizen or group of same organized a letter writing campaign or appeared at broadcast license renewal hearings? We allowed this to happen. It was not so long ago that all candidates were charged precisely the same fee for precisely the same dayparts as law-limited avails turned up. Reductionism in broadcast programming has spiraled downhill into social disaster on the air. And, again, we have no-one to blame but ourselves for allowing this predatory advertising and programming debacle. Remember Edward R Murrow's warning at the closing of GOOD NIGHT AND GOOD LUCK? That really happened of course, and Mr Murrow's worst fears were realized a long time ago.
If I recall correctly the obligation to use the airwaves in the public interest effectively ended under Reagan. Correct me if wrong but broadcasters no longer have to keep public files demonstrating that they serve in the public interest and that also means they don't have to collect public comment for those files either (do you remember the old PSAs stations used to run soliciting such comment?). Only Congress can clawback the old obligations the FCC used to impose on individual stations and, well, um, they're not going to bite the hand, as it were.
Broadcasters now only have to serve Wall Street, not the public interest. In that, they are exactly like any other corporation. Again, I hold that a fundamental change in the way we look at our economic system and the role of corporations and government will result in any lasting change in the nature of the media. That will require a sea change in public opinion and the willingness of people to take a hard look at capitalism American style.
Um, I would hope none of that money saved would be wasted on voting "machines" for polling places. All we need is paper ballots and auditability.
One of the most devious things ever done to the American public was to remove the "Fairness Doctrine" from broadcasting outlets.
The excuse was that with 24 hour news channels and cable channels, people would be able to select sources that suited their tastes and beliefs... however, most of America is not sophisticated enough to know when they are being played like a cheap kazoo by experts in the usage of that media.
At the moment, Dennis Kucinich is trying to bring the Fairness Doctrine back and we need to give him as much support and encouragement as possible in that regard.
When even Ted Turner starts warning that consolidation of the media has paved the way for abuse of the airwaves, you KNOW we are in danger!
In an article in Washington Monthly two years ago, Turner said: "Consolidation gives them more power to tilt the news and cut important ideas out of the public debate. And it's precisely that power that the rules should prevent."
http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/features/2004/0407.turner.html
The CITIZENS own our airwaves and communications infrastructure... we should demand REAL fair and balanced news coverage, not just empty slogans.
Just out of curiosity, why should political advertising necessarily cost so much money, anyway? If the airwaves truly are public, couldn't we just require all TV stations to set aside equal programming time for all qualified political candidates to express their views? If it were made mandatory for any station wishing to keep its broadcast license from year to year, wouldn't that solve the problem?
Nobody would have to pay for the advertising air time, because it would be free. Nobody would lose potential advertising revenue, because this change would affect all broadcast stations uniformly, and limit the supply of advertising air time. It wouldn't hurt broadcast outlets because they could make up the lost revenue by charging more for their remaining air time. Advertisers may not like it, but then again, good-old free market competition would also compel broadcast outlets to keep their air time rates reasonable.
Might consumers suffer in the form of higher-priced products (to offset the higher advertising costs) or more frequent advertisements on TV? Maybe, but those are also two business decisions that could backfire against the businesses that try them. Who would want to advertise on a station nobody watches (or listens to) because there are too many ads? Likewise, who would want to be the first to raise the price of their product for no other reason than that it costs more to advertise it?
A system of equal, free air time to all qualified political candidates could bring about good, positive change. If every candidate had the same, limited amount of advertising air-time they might even devote a little more thought to what they say versus obtaining to best time slots, bells, and whistles to grab the voting public's attention.
Just a thought...
Kegbot1, provoice, youngturk39, your are all right and we need the fairness doctrine now more then ever. These are our air waives and we must hold them accountable and demand cheaper air time for candidates during elections. We need reform, period. And fast.
FREE ACCESS is the better idea for campaigns. If all that can be passed right now is a discount from lowest rates, and it has to be legislated, then so be it. The so-called "free market" of corporate broadcasting has done LITTLE to serve the public good in recent years.
A return of the FAIRNESS DOCTRINE revoked during the Reagon years would be another EXCELLENT STEP. Local stations used to actually cover local events and have real staffs to do so. All that has been homogenized since into these mindless reality shows that have allowed the big corporations to do away with even the writers!
And, no, Clinton wasn't the one who gave the corporations free airwaves. That happened way back in the very beginning. What was more recent was the increased monopoly of ownership within market areas.
Until the Corporations are stripped of the legal LIE of Super-Citizenship established from the LIE inserted into the header of Santa Clara v. S. Pacific Railroad by the revolving door NY Railroad President acting as Clerk of Court in 1886 - we're always going to be screwed. Incrementalist 'reforms' are BS and will not restrain the Monsters.
Corporations are not humans. They have only the rights we give them to do their business- fully regulated. That doesn't include political participation let alone buying our political class in wholesale lots. Only humans can participate in "Our" politics. Check out Thom Hartmann's "Unequal Justice" - been out for more than a decade now. The rest is window dressing.
Now, most of you are aware that you can protest and march and write letters and 'vote' all you want and nothing will change and everything will get worse, just like it has for the last 50 years. Are you willing to sacrifice your life, your job, your family, and your career by throwing your body on the gears? That's the price. Lots of folks did that 40 years ago. They were killed by our government or falsely imprisoned, or hounded into silence and suicide. American Justice awaits you with smiling steel teeth. All the best.
Peace.
I think you are right luckylefty, to have somebody own the air, water, the genetic code for the food I eat, and soon I am told, my own genes is too much. Time to consider moving--but where?
And that is why it is so critical to keep the Internet the way it is. Over time, the Internet will replace the television as the main source of information for most US citizens, and Internet sites are low-cost and accessing them is low-cost. As long as we keep the Internet the way it is, and gobs of money will not buy more access, then maybe this problem will solve itself.
I know it sounds too good to be true, but stranger things have happened.
It's absolutely amazing how public sentiment is so easily corralled and rallied in the dethronement of smarmy talk show host, while high crimes and misdemeanors remained ignored and continue to run rampant!
ABSOLUTELY AMAZING AND ASTONISHING!
What channel is american idol on?
I can't wait for the exhumation of Nichol Smiths' body to get additional DNA!
Peace, Best Wishes and Hope
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tk1vEuhBuEU
Great article, thanks again--and thanks for calling in to KBOO Community radio, it really helped.
Amy Goodman's show, Democracy Now, is truly a significant aid to generating hope for justice in our country. Today, Noam Chomsky and Howard Zinn, along with Michael Albert, were all featured on the show. Voices like theirs provide hope in this often bleak reality. Amy Goodman, too. I am extremely grateful for their perseverance, clarity, and profundity. Just like all activists today.