Another Administration, Another Show : FCC Talks Deregulation, Plans Increased Censorship

Drive time will be decent.

Equal time may be required.

And prime time will be a multichannel mix of everything from tabloid trash to high-brow flash, served up on satellite dishes and ladled into high-resolution TV tubes from coast to coast.

In a nutshell, that is what TV and radio promise to deliver American audiences under the Administration that commences today, according to Dennis Patrick--the man who will guide the Federal Communications Commission into the 1990s.

The biggest revolution in broadcasting will be cheap, easy-to-install satellite dishes, the FCC chairman told The Times in an interview this week. Within three years, dishes will be as big a threat to traditional TV networks as cable and videocassette recorders, he predicted.

But audiences won’t have to wait three years to begin to see changes in the tube.

To begin with, one week after George Bush becomes the 41st President, “indecency” will be banned 24 hours a day from the American airwaves.

“The Helms bill goes into effect Jan. 27,” Patrick said of an anti-indecency broadcasting law that was authored last summer by Sen. Jesse Helms (R-N.C.) “Thereafter, the answer would be: ‘Yes, we will enforce it.’ ”

That will mean reprimands and fines for those stations that the commission believes are broadcasting prurient material. It is a policy that the FCC began pursuing shortly after Patrick became chairman 18 months ago, but now it has the force of law.

In the next few weeks, the commission will also expand from three to five members, filling two seats that have been vacant for more than a year, according to Patrick. And though he would not speculate on prospective appointees, industry sources say the spots will be filled by Sherrie Marshall, the FCC’s chief lobbyist on Capitol Hill for the past two years and a former White House aide, and Susan Wing, a partner in the Washington communications law firm of Hogan & Hartson.

Regardless of who will share the commission’s dais with the 37-year-old chairman, the agency’s 8-year crusade under the Reagan Administration to deregulate the broadcast industry may begin losing ground, Patrick warned.

The major issue broadcasters and the new commission will be facing in 1989, he said, will be “content regulation”--attempts by Congress to make TV and radio upgrade children’s and public service programming.

Patrick and his predecessor, former FCC Chairman Mark Fowler, maintained that the fewer programming requirements imposed on broadcasters, the better. Even the trend toward tabloid TV, spearheaded by the frequently lurid content of such programs as “A Current Affair” and Geraldo Rivera’s recent NBC special on Satanism, meet an audience need and should not be regulated, he said. Further, he does not regard such prime-time programming as indecent.

“Tabloid TV is just a passing fad,” Patrick said.

The quality of children’s television is not a passing fad, he concedes, but is also an area that the commission should avoid, according to Patrick.

“We would all like to see the finest quality in children’s programming. The question is: How do you define what that is? It’s easy to be a demagogue, but it’s an extraordinarily subjective question as to what constitutes good children’s programming.”

Under Patrick’s “let the marketplace decide” philosophy, using Saturday morning cartoon shows to sell toys could be construed as quality programming.

“Look at ‘Sesame Street.’ Look at Disney. They are very vigorous in the marketplace. Has their quality suffered?” he asked.

The one area where the FCC will draw the line is sexuality in children’s shows in accordance with the new “indecency” ban, Patrick said.

The new law, which draws on a decade-old Supreme Court definition of indecency, forbids owners of the nation’s 1,342 TV stations and 10,244 radio stations to broadcast pictures or words of a sexual or excretory nature that are “patently offensive.”

The National Assn. of Broadcasters and several other broadcast organizations have challenged the constitutionality of the Helms bill on grounds that the fuzzy definition of indecency violates First Amendment press and speech freedoms. Essentially, they argue, it leaves it to the commission to decide what is or is not indecent--a prospect that First Amendment advocates say could turn the five-member FCC into a government censoring board.

Since Patrick assumed the chairmanship in April, 1986, the FCC has publicly censured three radio stations and fined one TV station for airing what the commission deemed to be indecent programming.

Patrick and Commissioner James Quello voted last spring to exact $2,000 from the owners of KZKC-TV in Kansas City for broadcasting frontal nudity scenes in the comedy “Private Lessons” during prime time. Commissioner Patricia Dennis voted against fining the station.

KZKC’s owners, who denied wrongdoing, have appealed the FCC decision to the courts and refused to pay the fine. The FCC has yet to see its money, Patrick said.

“All I can say on that matter is that it is still pending,” Patrick said.

Also pending is the future of the Fairness Doctrine: a rule that broadcasters must present fair and balanced opposing points of view on controversial subjects.

A year ago, Patrick and his colleagues struck down the 30-year-old FCC policy, and congressional attempts to resurrect the rule have failed.

But Rep. John Dingell (D-Mich.), the powerful chairman of the House Commerce Committee, has made no secret of his hope to reinstate the Fairness Doctrine on grounds that broadcasters, in large part, have forsaken their duties to serve the public trust during the Fowler-Patrick years of deregulation.

Likewise, Dingell and his Capitol Hill colleagues are expected to introduce legislation this year that will require fewer commercials and better quality programming for children. Though the FCC opposes any kind of programming requirements, Patrick fears that the broadcasting industry as a whole may acquiesce in exchange for favorable tax treatment.

Congress will probably reintroduce a proposal to slap broadcasters with large transfer fees when they buy or sell a radio or TV license, for example. If station owners give in on the Fairness Doctrine, argues Patrick, Congress may go easy on the money issues.

“Broadcasters are going to have to decide whether they’re willing to accept more regulation in exchange for something that is a bad deal, both in business and for the First Amendment,” he said.

As far as new and emerging technologies, the FCC will maintain a free-market attitude in 1989, he said.

Patrick supports the recent efforts of telephone companies to join in the cable television business. He foresees high-definition television (HDTV) and satellite reception as the two exploding advances in mass media technology during the Bush years. The increased competition that they represent among broadcasters will ultimately serve the best interests of consumers, he said.

With more channels to choose from and more, better and cheaper radio and TV sets available, audiences will have better sound and picture reception and wider program selection in the 1990s.