The nation’s top communications lawmakers are starting to sing with the chorus of broadcast industry voices about leveling the indecency playing field between free broadcasting and its pay counterparts.
The powerful chairmen of the Senate and House Commerce Committees, which oversee telecommunications and consumer affair issues, are among those who have been convinced. But the leaders -- Sen. Ted Stevens, R-Alaska, and Rep. Joe Barton, R-Texas -- haven’t called for hearings on the issue . . . yet.
The “all are equal” fuse, if ignited, would likely restrict the content currently available on pay cable channels and satellite radio.
Such an explosion would certainly erase the decades-old definitions that separate Federal Communications Commission broadcast rules from those of satellite and cable -- based on the distinction that over-the-airwaves broadcasting is “pervasive” and “free,” while citizens choose to pay to bring cable and satellite into their homes.
Andrew Levin, executive VP/chief legal officer for the nation’s largest broadcast entity, Clear Channel Communications, says the company is concerned about what it calls a “growing disparity” in FCC regulations concerning media content delivered over competing platforms.
Clear Channel and the National Assn. of Broadcasters are telling Senate and House members that cable and satellite should be judged by the marketplace reality of 2005: that 85% of Americans actually pay for the broadcasts of their hometown “free” TV channels, because, as cable subscribers, they access such channels through the service. So why, they say, should satellite and cable be judged differently?
The momentum built March 1, when Stevens told attendees at an NAB state leadership conference that he believes all radio and TV platforms should be subject to the same FCC rules on indecency as over-the-air broadcasting.
Stevens complained, “We spend millions to promote abstinence (among teenagers) while the public airwaves are increasingly promoting sex. Now, broadcasters alone are not to blame; cable is often worse, very worse.”
Stevens vowed to get legislation approved that would apply the same indecency standards to cable and satellite radio and TV. “I think we have the same power to deal with cable as over-the-air” broadcasters, he said.
A House dividedHouse leaders have also been listening to the broadcast lobby’s complaints, and have reacted.
“It’s not fair to subject over-the-air broadcasters to one set of rules and not subject cable and satellite to (any) rules,” Barton said in a statement supporting Stevens.
Rep. Fred Upton, R.-Mich., chairman of the House Telecommunications Subcommittee, also believes Congress should debate the issue of a level playing field. Upton is the author of the Broadcast Decency Enforcement Act, H.R. 310, which raised fines on over-the-air broadcasters. It was approved Feb. 2 by a vote of 389-38.
Not every member supports such a monumental change. Rep. Rick Boucher, D-Va., a House Commerce Committee member, is among those who oppose it. He characterizes supporters of trying to apply “nanny-like standards” to pay services. “People can choose, and if they don’t like the fare, they have the option to not subscribe,” he says.
Insiders predict that even if Congress passes such a bill, a court fight looms.
Like many other observers, Levin questions whether Congress is ready to tackle the matter in its current session, even though he says the company is talking to Congress “all the time about it.”
Levin contends that children will still be able to listen to Howard Stern when he crosses over to Sirius Satellite Radio next January and claims the government is not providing any protection.
Officials at Sirius did not have any comment regarding Levin’s suggestion.
On whether the subscription payment aspect is relevant, Levin charges that Sirius and competitor XM “are giving away the service.” He adds that lawmakers might “need to look at that again, as to whether or not the pay aspect is really relevant these days.”
XM VP of corporate affairs Chance Patterson calls Levin’s lobbying efforts “typical behavior on the part of big broadcasters resisting new competing technologies.”
Patterson says, “We have a very user-friendly and robust way for people to block content on the radios, right on the devices or by placing a call to customer service.
“Over time,” he says, “the feedback that we’ve got from the FCC is that we’re doing the right thing.”