It’s Time for Give and Take in Broadcasting

Having contributed too little to the quality of American life during the 34 weeks of the 1995-96 TV season, commercial television nevertheless continues to insist on huge bequests for itself from the people, of the people and by the people of the United States.

These include free access to new large chunks of the broadcast spectrum that will soon become available for the first time. Through digital compression and other complicated technical hocus-pocus, Channels 4 and 7 and 9 and the others on your TV dial will, in the future, be able to carry more than just one signal. In other words, there could be four Channel 4s, one of them offering normal TV and the other three something else.

Commercial broadcasters want that “something else” to be money-making gimmickry like home shopping channels. This is what we really need in America: additional opportunities to order porcelain figurines, baseball cards and costume jewelry over the phone.

More visionary souls would like some of the additional spectrum space allocated to high-definition TV, which would bring into American homes much sharper pictures on wide, movie-shaped screens. The FCC has been bumbling around with HDTV for well over a decade, however, and it’s still mere pie in the proverbial sky. Broadcasters aren’t happy with the prospect because they’d have to shell out beaucoup bucks for new equipment.

Meanwhile, the networks and stations continue to balk and squawk over the modest proposal by FCC Chairman Reed Hundt that they be required to devote a certain number of hours each day to quality children’s programming. This means something more than 22 minutes of pow-pow superheroics followed by a perfunctory 30-second “pro-social” message like, “Look both ways before crossing the street” or “Don’t pinch your sister.”

Longtime FCC Commissioner James Quello has made it a berserk crusade to oppose Hundt’s plan on behalf of the broadcasting industry. The businessmen don’t like the idea of a mandated quota. Quello is marring his record, years of faithful service on the commission, with his die-hard opposition, though in recent weeks he’s indicated he may be mellowing a tiny bit on the issue.

Broadcasters are also unhappy about a proposal that they be required to set aside a certain number of prime-time hours in the months ahead for informational programming on the 1996 elections--things like debates, discussions and free time for candidates to express themselves in something other than 30-second blurts.

*

The networks fear that such programs, which generate no revenue, will interfere with the stimulating bill of fare they normally offer viewers--sitcoms about wisecrackers and wackies, dramas about murderers and killers and emergency-room cutups.

Only Rupert Murdoch’s Fox network currently supports the idea of free time for candidates.

Why doesn’t the FCC just ignore the whining of networks and order them to comply with the children’s programming requirement and the free time for political candidates? Because the way things work in Washington, the broadcasters traditionally get to dictate how much regulation they will accept. And now that it is a gigantic business as well, so does the cable industry. Chairman Hundt is trying to rock the boat without causing a full-scale mutiny.

Since this is an election year, it’s unlikely Congress will feel like getting tough with broadcasters and cablecasters and thus give Hundt a hand. Nobody wants to get on the industry’s bad side right now.

And since the giant networks have become parts of even bigger corporations, it may get harder than ever to make them tow the lines.

It does only seem fair that if broadcasters are going to ask for more and more from the government, such as more spectrum space with which to make more profits, they should be willing to offer something in return.

The public owns the airwaves; that’s the law. So far, the TV industry is Mr. Take-Take-Take. It’s time for a little give-give-give.