COPPS SAYS COMMISSION SHOULDN'T WAIT ON PAY-FOR-PLAY EXAMINATION

FCC Comr. Copps said the Commission should seize on allegations of “pay-for-play” involving TV and radio stations and shouldn’t leave it to the Enforcement Bureau alone, but should confront the issue themselves. Although an aide to Chmn. Powell said the issue should be dealt with in the context of the Commission’s current examination of localism, Copps said “pay-for-play” shouldn’t be part of “some never- ending process that’s going to go months and months forward. I think we ought to deal with this now.” His comments came in a media briefing Thurs. one day after Comr. Adelstein called on his colleagues to open a formal inquiry into “pay- for-play.”

Copps’s comments also followed a decision by the management of WFLA-TV (Ch.8, NBC) Tampa, late Wed. to change the station’s policy on labeling on-air paid segments. Adelstein had cited the Media General station as an example of “payola.” The station has been airing interviews in its Daytime program that resembles a news program in exchange for money. In its announcement, WFLA-TV called the show an “entertainment” program. Both Adelstein and Copps indicated they believed the station was deceiving viewers. They also said it had been held out as an example of the positive synergies between TV and newspapers as they shared resources. “If this is the result of synergy, that’s one hell of a synergy, and I don’t think it’s necessarily a synergy that’s in the public interest,” Copps said.

Powell’s aide said the Commission hadn’t received any formal complaints about “pay-for-play” at stations but the Enforcement Bureau would investigate any alleged illegalities that emerged. Commission rules say stations must identify ad segments on the air. As for policy questions, he said, that’s precisely the type of issue the Localism Task Force was designed to examine, and it could very well make recommendations to the Commission and Congress. Asked whether the Commission should consider “pay-for-play” practices when stations came up for license renewal, the aide stressed that while it could be considered, it would be hard to turn down a license without proof of illegality. “We would agree these aren’t the most ideal situations in the world,” the aide said. “The question is, is existing regulation enough to protect the public, and that’s a question for the Localism Task Force.”

WFLA-TV Gen. Mgr. Eric Land said the show had always identified paid ad segments at the end of the program in the credits. He said he believed the paid segments had always been “obvious by their nature” but because not everyone read the credits, the station now would introduce such segments as paid ads, in addition to the closing credit identification. “This should eliminate any remaining possibility for confusion,” Copps said. An aide said Adelstein wasn’t available for comment.

Neither Adelstein nor Copps limited his remarks to that station, however, and Copps said he thought such situations were “disturbing trends and if the upshot of consolidation in combining these newsrooms isn’t good… and they're only using it to lower costs or to raise money or something like that, then that’s a further damning indictment on the fruits of consolidation.” Copps also said allegations that stations were taking money in exchange for air time should be considered when the FCC decided whether to renew their licenses.

Asked about CBS’s decision not to air The Reagans miniseries, Copps declined to draw a link between the network’s decision and possible congressional action to reinstate old limits on how many radio and TV stations one company could own. Prominent Republicans, including Republican National Committee Chmn. Ed Gillespie, had prevailed upon CBS to withdraw the program as an unbalanced portrayal of the former president (CD Nov 5 p12). “I certainly hope not, that they [CBS] caved because of pressure coming from any one group,” Copps said, adding that he didn’t have an opinion about the merits of the program itself. “I don’t want to ascribe motivations or make that direct connection to the media ownership vote.” Members of Congress, he said, would have to “make their own judgment if there’s been what they deem to be untoward pressures brought or untoward pressures in the decision.” A CBS representative had not returned a phone message by our deadline.

On cable, Copps said he wasn’t sure when horizontal ownership would be brought up for consideration by the commissioners, but said he believed it to be part of the overall picture of media ownership. “This is not a discrete or disconnected item,” he said. Citing a recent report by the General Accounting Office (GAO) on cable rates, Copps said the Commission should do a better job of analyzing the market in its annual rate survey -- a message conveyed in the GAO report.

Asked about must-carry, Copps said he believed the Commission could consider that issue before the end of the year. In that vein, he said he believed the agency should be examining the public interest obligations of broadcasters in the DTV world, including whether children’s programming and community affairs programming should be on all digital streams or whether would one suffice. “This is absolutely critical to DTV. What’s it [the spectrum] going to be used for?… This Commission needs to address it and we are not doing an adequate job,” Copps said.

On the broadcast flag, Copps said he wanted to see a continuing role for the agency in ensuring that no one industry, company or technology served as a gatekeeper to TV content. He said the FCC’s role should extend beyond the interim period outlined in the broadcast flag order, which said the agency would oversee approval of technologies while the issue of which 3rd party ultimately should have that power was explored in a further rulemaking.

‘Time is Here’ for Wireless LNP

As for wireless local number portability, Copps said: “I think there has been plenty of notice to all parties for years now that we need to move in this direction. I think that consumers have an expectation that they will have this capacity to move their numbers and I think the time is here.” Wireless carriers face a Nov. 24 deadline for implementing LNP in the top 100 markets. The FCC is expected to release an order as early as today (Fri.) addressing remaining implementation issues on wireline-to-wireless LNP. Among the concerns raised by some ILECs, including rural carriers, is the technical feasibility of porting wireless numbers outside of a rate center. Some rural carriers had argued that for one wireless carrier to request LNP from another, the requestor needed a local point of presence, local numbering resources and local interconnection with the original carrier.

“The litmus test is technical feasibility for doing this,” Copps said of wireline-to-wireless LNP. “I think most of the judgments are that most of this is technically feasible. I know there is a question on if you go outside the rate center with your wireless number and want to bring that into a different wireline rate center. Those are different things that we have to tee up and look at going forward.” He declined to speculate on whether any of those wireline-to-wireless rate center issues would have to be broken out of the upcoming order for further examination. “I think the bulk of this can be done. I don’t think that’s where the bulk of the consumer activity is going to be in the first place,” he said.

Asked about Qwest’s plan to offer mass market voice- over-IP service starting in Minn. (CD Nov 5 p5), Copps said the broadening of the consumer availability of that service raised a host of regulatory questions. “It raises a lot of concerns and one of them is are we maybe late in getting to this,” he said. “There are a lot of question marks out there. It’s hard for companies to do business with question marks and it’s hard for consumers to understand what’s available to them.” How VoIP will be regulated “is a huge question,” he said. Chmn. Powell’s interest in having an FCC forum on VoIP issues is a “good opening move to get involved,” Copps said.