NO MANDATORY PSAs ARE ON FCC SCREEN, 3 COMMISSIONERS AGREE

Requiring broadcasters to air public service announcements (PSAs) would raise First Amendment problems, FCC Comrs. Abernathy and Martin told Kaiser Family Foundation seminar in Washington Thurs. Comr. Copps didn’t disagree, but said if broadcasters and cable didn’t improve their efforts to serve public interest, “there’s going to be a reaction,” without explaining what he meant. On public interest requirement for cable, Abernathy said: “I don’t see the government stepping in.”

Copps said “license renewal has become pretty much a postcard affair,” saying stations should face “a somewhat more rigorous examination” of how they had met public interest. Martin said stations should be allowed flexibility in complying with public interest standard.

James Goodmon of WRAL-TV Raleigh-Durham -- who favors mandatory public interest requirements for commercial broadcasters -- told audience time was now to lobby FCC. He noted Commission’s rulemaking to establish standards for DTV, saying: “If you want public service time, you'd better start fighting for it… If we don’t get it in the rules for digital stations, it is gone.”

Abernathy said nobody was lobbying her for digital public interest standards. Of rulemaking, she said: “We've got to get it done [but] I don’t have a time line.” She and Copps said other issues might have caused delay in digital rulemaking.