CPB Funding Bill Faces Compromise : Television: Senate GOP may force changes in $1.1-billion bill. Some public broadcasting officials fear politicians might meddle with programming.

Senate Republicans, upset with what they claim is a liberal bias in public broadcasting, are close to forcing Democrats to accept amendments and compromise wording in a bill to fund the Corporation for Public Broadcasting for 1994 through 1996, according to sources on both sides.

Among the changes expected in the $1.1-billion bill, according to John Lawson, director of national affairs for America’s Public Television Stations, are:

* A provision requiring the Corporation for Public Broadcasting--the private, nonprofit corporation set up in 1967 to disburse federal grants for public radio and television--to hold regular sessions to take testimony from members of the public who believe that programs are biased, and to incorporate that testimony into its decisions on what programs to fund.

* A provision requiring the corporation to disclose information regarding grants it makes to producers, including the name of the producer, the reasons for the grant, grant criteria and audited reports of the program’s finances.

While the compromise seems innocuous to some observers--”As long as they’re under no obligation to limit themselves, if that (compromise) can break the logjam, that’s fine,” said Lawrence K. Grossman, who served as president of the Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) for eight years--others say it is the first step in whittling away at the “heat shield” meant to protect public broadcasting from political interference.

“It’s these little picky things, it’s the chipping away of the stone,” said Nancy Neubauer, spokeswoman for America’s Public Television Stations. “One thing by itself doesn’t sound very serious, but these little chips just add up and take away from the editorial integrity of the system.”

For example, revealing the names of controversial producers being considered for grants could lead to congressional mandates to refuse to fund those producers, Neubauer said.

In addition, Lawson said, other amendments are expected to be offered when the bill reaches the Senate floor. Amendments expected from Sen. Jesse Helms (R-N.C.) include a proposal to freeze or reduce funding for the corporation, a plan to disband the Independent Television Service and a requirement that forbids the granting of federal money to programs that are obscene. (No public television program has ever been found to be obscene under U.S. law, and obscenity on the air is already forbidden by the Federal Communications Commission.)

“What we’re trying to do is work out a very complicated package,” said Walt Riker, spokesman for Sen. Robert Dole (R-Kan.), who has been leading the charge against public broadcasting. “We’ve been working in good faith for many weeks now.”

If compromise is reached within the next few days--both sides say they are “very close” to an agreement--the bill could come to the Senate floor as early as next week. It has been stalled in the Senate since November, when a group of conservative Republicans used a tactical maneuver to hold it in limbo.

In February, Senate Democrats forced the bill to the floor, but removed it again when Republicans tried to attach President Bush’s crime bill to it.

Since then, the two parties--led by Dole and Helms on the Republican side and Sen. Daniel K. Inouye of Hawaii on the Democratic side--have been wrangling over ways to move the bill forward.

“Part of what’s happening is that there is a general acrimony on the floor in a lot of other issues,” said a Democratic Senate source who has been working on the bill. “We didn’t want (public broadcasting) to get in the middle of what are just political arguments at this point.”

Theoretically, any compromise would seem unnecessary, because Democrats control the Senate, and most Republicans support public broadcasting. But public broadcasting executives say they are forced to work with their opponents nonetheless.

To do otherwise would risk losing the bill to a filibuster, and possibly incur the wrath of senators who would otherwise support them, officials said.

“It isn’t necessary, but in the Senate there are no limits on time for debates,” said Donald Ledwig, president of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. “Therefore, the Senate is an institution that works toward consensus and compromise. There’s a tradition of being reluctant to shut off a senator who wants to talk.”

Ledwig insisted that the much-publicized claims of bias--and more recently that public broadcasters are overpaid--are false.

And other public broadcasting officials, speaking privately, say they are worried that the compromise will make it possible for politicians to meddle with programming, as well as the risk that special-interest groups will pack hearings, forcing inappropriate changes in programming.

But they say they have no choice.

“We as an industry are basically making the call that the risk of inappropriate behavior by CPB at some point in the future is less than the risk of creating a dedicated core of enemies in the U.S. Senate,” Lawson said.

The possible compromise was hailed by conservative media critic David Horowitz, who took credit for raising the issue of alleged bias.

“The Republicans dug their heels in because we neutralized the charge of sanctity around the system,” Horowitz said. “We neutralized Big Bird.”

Horowitz credited his claims of excessive pay for public broadcasting officials for getting the Senate’s attention as much as the bias claim.

But he admitted in an interview that those claims were exaggerated. For example, he said, an executive who Horowitz claimed made $600,000 does not work for public broadcasting, but works for a toy company under contract to make products based on “Sesame Street” characters.