FCC Checks TV, Radio Stations on Politicians’ Rates

The Federal Communications Commission has asked 30 television and radio stations in five major markets to prove that they have charged the lowest possible rates to politicians who buy commercial time.

The FCC said the audits, its first ever, were prompted by the agency’s “obligation to assure that broadcast stations are complying with political programming laws and rules, especially in an election year.”

Milton Graves, chief of the FCC’s political division, said the audits were not the result of any complaint.

“This is just a part of overseeing how the stations are complying,” he said. “We want to know what their practices are.”

FCC field inspectors went Monday to stations in Cincinnati, Dallas-Ft. Worth, Philadelphia, San Francisco and Portland, Ore. In each city, they visited four television stations, an AM radio station and an FM radio station.

“These cities were selected because they are geographically diverse and also because, in some instances, the stations serve more than one state,” the FCC said.

Inspectors asked the stations for political files for the 1990 elections, rate cards for political and commercial advertisers, commercial invoices, program logs and statements from the stations regarding pricing structures and methods of calculating “lowest unit” charges for political candidates.

They were given 20 days to send the FCC data on rates for non-political advertisers but were asked to provide the political information immediately, Graves said.

He said auditors in the agency’s Washington office will “examine all the information that’s provided to us.”