Public Affairs Shows Decline 51%, Nader Says

Public affairs programming on television has decreased by more than half in the last 10 years as a result of deregulation by the Federal Communications Commission, says a public interest group started by Ralph Nader.

The group, Essential Information, said there has been a 51% decrease in issues-oriented public affairs TV programs since 1979.

The group called for re-establishment of the FCC’s Fairness Doctrine, which the agency repealed in 1987, and for a return of so-called 5-5-10 rules that required broadcasters to devote certain percentages of their broadcasting hours to non-entertainment programming.

The report, by Jim Donahue, was attacked immediately by broadcasters and by an FCC official who said the results were “incredible.”

John Kamp, an FCC spokesman, said the report “sounds terribly bogus.”

As for the Fairness Doctrine, Kamp said the “commission found that it decreased the amount of public interest programming available . . . which was the opposite of what it was intended to do.”

‘Rogue Agency’

At a news conference, Nader said the FCC under Chairman Dennis R. Patrick and his predecessor, Mark S. Fowler, was a “rogue agency that has dangerously transformed power from the public to private commerce in sheer violation of the (1934 Communications Act).”

Nader said the FCC believed that marketplace pressures would force station owners to broadcast issues-oriented programs.

That has not happened, Nader said, and the FCC refuses “to respect the access rights, the response rights of the audience.”

The study by Essential Information, which Nader founded in 1982, examined TV listings for programs at 217 stations in 50 markets on seven days in early 1988.