FCC Warns TV Networks on Crediting Anti-Drug Messages

Federal regulators say the TV networks should have named the Office of National Drug Control Policy as a sponsor of “ER” and other prime-time shows that included anti-drug messages paid for by the government.

The ruling by the Federal Communications Commission found “no basis for enforcement action” and does not impose any fine. But it warned the networks about running afoul of the nation’s 73-year-old payola laws, which require that any broadcast “for which money, service, or other valuable consideration” is received “be announced as paid for” by a named sponsor.

“Sponsorship identification is required and we caution the Networks to do so in the future,” the FCC said in a statement released Friday.

In its ruling, the FCC said ABC, NBC, CBS, FOX and the WB networks misled viewers about a controversial government advertising scheme that gave the networks a combined total of more than $20 million over the last two years to include anti-drug messages in the scripts of popular TV shows. In congressional hearings this year, lawmakers were told that the White House reviewed the scripts of more than 100 shows to determine whether the programs’ plots contained anti-drug messages strong enough to warrant payment.

The money was not paid directly to the TV networks by the government. Instead, the government agreed to give up commercial time it had previously bought from the networks in exchange for getting the anti-drug messages incorporated in prime-time programs. Besides “ER,” the programs included “The Drew Carey Show,” “Beverly Hills 90210,” “Chicago Hope,” “America’s Most Wanted” and “7th Heaven.”

“The TV networks must feel ‘damned if you do and damned if you don’t,’ ” said Robert Thompson, founder of the Center for the Study of Popular Television at Syracuse University in New York. “They are getting an awful lot of pressure from the right and the left about cleaning up their act. . . . To an extent this is like a sting: The government is slapping the hands of the networks for doing something that the government asked the networks to do.”

The FCC ruling underscores the uneasy alliance between the television networks, which are regulated by the FCC, and the government, which relies on network news coverage and other programming to get its message out. It also highlights the increasingly murky area of content sponsorship at a time the Internet and other media are blurring the distinction between independently produced and sponsored messages.

Barry R. McCaffrey, national drug policy director, launched the unorthodox anti-drug advertising campaign in 1998--one year after Congress approved a five-year program to spend $1 billion on anti-drug advertising. Although about 30% of the ads McCaffrey purchased were in magazines and newspapers, it was the TV script alterations that drew the biggest outcry after the Web site Salon.com disclosed the practice.

Congress held hearings in February and civil liberties groups charged that the government was abridging the networks’ 1st Amendment rights. And the National Organization of the Reform of Marijuana Laws filed a complaint with the FCC urging the agency to penalize the networks.

The FCC ordered the networks to disclose the drug office’s sponsorship in any rebroadcast of the affected TV shows “to the extent that . . . the networks were aware that they would be compensated for repeat broadcasts.”

The FCC did not chastise the federal government in its ruling. But some critics say the government bears at least as much blame as the networks.

“The networks were broadcasting a message in response to government inducement,” said Robert Corn-Rever, a former FCC chief counsel who is now in private practice in Washington. “When you have the government engaged in the hidden campaign of persuasion, that crosses the line and raises concerns . . . about violation of the 1st Amendment.”

The television networks either did not return calls or declined to comment on the FCC ruling.

But in filings with the FCC they said sponsorship disclosure was not needed because the TV script alterations were made before the networks knew whether the government would approve compensation.

The networks also said the script changes were akin to previous instances in which the FCC did not require disclosure of sponsorship. The WB network, for instance, cited a TV station that aired a scenic travel film provided by a bus company but did not mention the company to viewers.

But the FCC found that because the networks “were obligated to donate a matching amount of media time” in exchange for the advertising spots previously purchased by the government, they should have named the drug office as a sponsor.