Broadcasters Urged to Boost Obligations

Federal Communications Commission Chairman Reed Hundt, who has clashed with broadcasters in the past, Tuesday renewed his call for the industry to boost its public-interest obligations.

Addressing the industry’s annual convention here, Hundt cited such issues as free time to political candidates, increasing the number of public-service announcements, educational television and a code of industry policy toward liquor advertising with an eye on protecting children.

“The property you use is public property,” Hundt told the National Assn. of Broadcasters, saying they should not ask how such regulations affect them but rather, “What does the country need?”

On free air time--potentially a key component of campaign finance reform because the major cost of candidates involves television advertising--Hundt said the introduction of digital technology over the next two years, with the possibility of multiple signals, should make it easier for broadcasters to comply.

“The country knows we need a change here,” he said, asking industry officials to work with Vice President Al Gore to “at least help us frame the questions.”

Hundt also alluded to a published report that estimated the major networks now devote as much as $500 million annually to promoting their own programs through on-air advertising--an allocation that has come in part at the expense of public-service announcements.

The industry’s response, Hundt said, “cannot be that everything’s fine, because everything is not fine.”

Broadcasters noted that public-service ads represent only a part of their local involvement, which also includes community outreach and charitable programs.

NAB President Edward O. Fritts, the industry’s chief lobbyist in Washington, said he was “miffed” by some of Hundt’s remarks and that the FCC chairman wrongly perceives public-service ads as the only “measure of local community or public-interest programming. That’s a myth.”

Hundt urged the industry to seek an antitrust exemption in order to codify its position relating to alcohol advertising. Some hard-liquor marketers, such as Seagram Co., have recently broken from the industry’s long-standing policy of voluntary abstention, maintaining their product is equivalent to wine and beer, which is advertised on television.