UHF DISCOUNT, INDECENT BROADCASTS ADDRESSED IN FCC REAUTHORIZATION

Several amendments were tacked onto the FCC Reauthorization Act (S-1264) that the Senate Commerce Committee passed Thurs., but it wasn’t the telecom “war” some lobbyists saw as possible earlier this week. Senate Appropriations Chmn. Stevens (R-Alaska) didn’t put forward an amendment to delay the wireless industry’s local number portability deadline, nor were TELRIC pricing or broadband UNE requirements mentioned. “Judging by the amendments filed, the truce in the battle of telecom titans is holding,” Senate Commerce Committee McCain said.

But the Committee did take action on several items, including the elimination of the UHF 50% discount. It also voted to: (1) Give the FCC power to pull the licenses of broadcasters repeatedly airing indecent material. (2) Create a 4-year period for media ownership review so each Administration would have an opportunity to conduct a review. (3) Order the FCC to create rules on how citizens could obtain information about the purchasers of political ads. McCain said the Committee would hold a hearing on localism in broadcasting.

The FCC Reauthorization Act would make several procedural changes (CD June 16 p1), including: (1) Raising fines the Commission could levy for violations. (2) Preventing the use of bankruptcy to miss spectrum payments. (3) Initiating an investigation of the e-rate program. (4) Preventing FCC officials from accepting private funding for travel.

An amendment by Sen. Lautenberg (D-N.J.) that was adopted would eliminate the UHF 50% discount, despite McCain’s objection. Lautenberg said the discount was outdated and would allow megamedia companies to exceed the ownership caps established by the FCC. But McCain and others said UHF stations had far weaker signals and shouldn’t be categorized like VHF stations. Senate Communications Subcommittee Chmn. Burns (R-Mont.) said such an adjustment should be held until after the DTV transition. Senate Commerce Committee ranking Democrat Hollings (S.C.) said that with cable must-carry, UHF stations had virtually the same reach as VHF stations. The amendment passed 13-10.

Hollings won approval of an amendment that would allow the FCC to revoke the license of a broadcaster after repeated indecency violations. He said the amendment would particularly target radio stations such as WKRK-FM in Detroit, which he said repeatedly had violated indecency regulations. Only Burns opposed the amendment, which he said was unnecessary because the FCC already had the power to levy fines. McCain said the provision in the act that allowed the FCC to increase its fines tenfold would be especially useful in cracking down on indecent broadcasts. Burns said it was up to the public to fight against indecent broadcasters in each community. But Hollings said Detroit did speak out against WKRK, but the FCC didn’t listen. “It was given to the FCC and they dillied and dallied. They didn’t even have a hearing,” he said. “I'm trying to wake up the FCC.”

Sen. Sununu (R-N.H.) offered an amendment that would have retained a deregulatory bent for FCC media review and would have changed the review period to 4 years. He said he believed Congress’s intent with the Telecom Act was to deregulate. “Why don’t we ask the man who wrote the act,” McCain asked, to which Hollings replied that Congress intended to allow the FCC to “go backwards or forwards” and have the authority to change the rules any time.

However, while Sununu’s proposal was rejected, he did win on a revised amendment that would change the review period to 4 years from 2, instead of the proposed 5-year period. He said a 4-year review period would prevent a situation where a Presidential Administration didn’t have the opportunity to review the media rules.

A McCain amendment would require the FCC to conduct a rulemaking on political advertising. He said it would prompt the FCC to develop rules to be followed when citizens wanted more information on who funded political advertising. He cited the case of “Republicans For a Clean Environment,” which secretly ran ads for months before the media eventually discovered it was the work of 2 wealthy brothers in Tex. Stevens said the McCain amendment would help create more transparency in political advertising. Sen. Allen (R-Va.) had questions about privacy, which McCain said were under the realm of the Federal Election Commission. McCain said the FCC already had the responsibility to require disclosure of who paid for political advertisement, but it hadn’t yet developed a rule.

Sen. Dorgan (D-S.D.) proposed an amendment that would compel the FCC to conduct a rulemaking on localism that would require stations to broadcast a certain amount of local content. Dorgan said the amendment targeted off-location broadcasts, particularly radio, where the voice on the air actually was piped in from a far-off location, but made to appear local. When Dorgan proposed the amendment, he said he would withdraw it and was merely trying to get a hearing on the subject. But Stevens urged Dorgan not to withdraw the proposal. “We're pushing for local-to-local, which is the whole concept of localism,” he said. McCain said he would hold a hearing on the subject, which could lead to a floor amendment on the topic.

Sen. Cantwell (D-Wash.) attempted to have 2 amendments added, one of which was opposed by Stevens and the other by McCain. One would give citizens the right to challenge broadcast license renewal, which Stevens and Burns vigorously opposed. While Cantwell said the provision would merely codify FCC and court rules and would give citizens a more active voice in license renewal, Stevens worried that it could allow fringe groups to stall and delay license renewals. Citizens individually or as an organization should be allowed to “comment” to the FCC on license renewal, but they shouldn’t be allowed to issue a formal “challenge,” Stevens said. “Challenges raise a lot of issues for small broadcasters,” he said. McCain said Republicans and Democrats had different interpretations on what the bill would do, but he supported it because “average citizens aren’t heard enough.”

McCain didn’t support Cantwell’s 2nd amendment, but Stevens did. The amendment sought to obligate broadcasters to present more compelling cases about their service in the public interest. McCain said the amendment, while laudable, was too complicated. But Stevens supported it, saying: “Too many public interest reviews are being sent in on postcards.”

The committee also approved technical amendments that modified language in the e-rate review. The act included a provision that would let the FCC require video descriptions of TV for the sight-impaired and McCain and Hollings included an amendment that would include the informational “crawl” into the requirements because it often contained weather and other emergency messages. Stevens successfully attached an amendment that would require the FCC to open a rulemaking on DTV translators and digital on-channel repeaters.