Not One Big, Happy Family Anymore

To those producers, writers, performers and unions who feel that the level of control exerted over them by the major TV networks has expanded ominously in recent years, here’s a note of solace.

Network affiliates, the stations that actually disseminate programming from city to city across the United States, say they feel precisely the same way.

In March, 600 television stations filed a complaint with the Federal Communications Commission, contending the networks are abusing their relationship with affiliates--in violation, the stations argued, of existing communications law.

Such a disagreement doubtless sounds especially arcane in cities such as Los Angeles and Chicago, where the ABC, CBS, NBC and Fox stations are all O&Os--that; is, “owned and operated” by their respective networks, and thus unlikely to deviate from the preordained schedule.

Across the country, however, there are more than 200 distinct TV markets--from New York City down to tiny Glendive, Mont.--and millions of viewers watch programs on stations merely affiliated with a network. These stations produce their own local newscasts and acquire programming from other sources to flesh out lineups in the afternoon, early evening and late night.

To these broadcasters, the real fear--sure to hover over the National Assn. of Broadcasters convention, the annual paean to TV technology scheduled for later this month in Las Vegas--is that the government will further relax rules limiting how many TV stations a company can amass, allowing the networks to further consolidate their power.

As it stands, networks can own TV stations that reach up to 35% of U.S. households. The networks argue those rules are outdated--that they must be free to expand their holdings to compete with dozens (and potentially hundreds) of channels streaming into the average home.

Efforts to raise or eliminate the 35% cap have transformed the relationship between networks and their affiliates from “The Odd Couple” into “Family Feud.” Last week, CBS pulled out of the National Assn. of Broadcasters, leaving ABC the only remaining network member of the group.

The affiliates’ recent filing thus amounted to a last-gasp attempt to lobby an FCC soon to have a new Republican majority and a chairman philosophically wedded to deregulation in Michael Powell, a Bush administration appointee and the son of Secretary of State Colin Powell.

Hoping to bolster their case, network affiliates have couched their argument in terms of public service, wrapping themselves in the American flag.

“We think what is at issue here is the whole of the American system of broadcasting,” said Alan Frank, president of the Post-Newsweek TV station group, which has been active in the campaign. Regarding the networks’ greater dominance, he added, “We don’t think it’s good for the country, we don’t think it’s good for localism, [and] we don’t think it’s good for diversity.”

At issue for viewers, even in Los Angeles, is the undeniable fact that fewer programming decisions are made based on local interests or tastes, as local control gives way to the mandates of centralized programming services.

Broadcasting in the U.S., Frank noted, was built on the principle that individual stations are licensed by the government and ultimately charged with representing local interests and standards. “It’s your station. That’s how you are judged, by how you serve your community,” he said.

“It’s a checks-and-balances kind of approach,” added Alan Bell, president of Irvine-based Freedom Broadcasting, which owns eight TV stations affiliated with CBS and ABC.

While networks feed programming nationwide, then, local stations traditionally had final say over what to broadcast. Station managers were known to preempt the network if they felt a program would offend their community or to carry material of greater local interest, from sporting events to Billy Graham religious specials.

Still, in recent years networks have flexed their muscles on the preemption issue; indeed, Fox employs its own version of a “three strikes” rule--threatening to sever a station’s valuable ties to the network if there are three unauthorized preemptions.

“It’s clear the networks have gone dramatically over the line,” Frank said. “And if you lift the [ownership] cap, the abuses will be worse.”

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One fear Bell cited is that networks could use their leverage to coerce owners to sell a station by threatening to pull affiliation in that market or another. “The ability to wound in an area having nothing to do with that discussion is the essence of unfairness,” he said.

As with most squabbles of this kind, there is history involved. In the early 1990s, CBS, under then-Chairman Laurence Tisch, angered affiliates by slashing payments stations received to carry network programming. Then in 1994, Fox--after outbidding CBS for rights to NFL football--enticed a dozen stations to switch their affiliation from the elder networks to Fox.

The move set off an expensive war, as networks scrambled to safeguard their distribution systems, renegotiating long-term deals with stations. As former NBC Chairman Grant Tinker then observed, “At that point, ‘partnership’ became a lowercase word for the affiliates and the network. Those guys are not very loyal now.”

In short, networks and affiliates jointly created this atmosphere of mistrust, one in which networks dismiss talk of localism and complaints about being force-fed network fare by saying affiliates simply want to pocket more money--as they often can by running local sports or selling time to such programming as Graham’s crusade. Affiliates also haven’t always helped their cause in the court of public opinion by arbitrarily preempting quality shows perceived as offending local values--including series such as “Picket Fences” and “NYPD Blue.”

Yet, as opposed to this being censorship, Frank maintained, “It’s actually a responsibility. It’s in our license.” In addition, he suggested rightly enough that most choices stations would like the freedom to make--such as whether to put on “Temptation Island” or XFL football--are simply a judgment call and “not about any great community good.”

Given the FCC’s expected stance, affiliates will probably wind up pleading their case to the courts or Congress, having long wielded clout with the latter as gatekeepers of what TV news reaches representatives’ constituents back home. So though additional deregulation on its face appears unavoidable, as with the writers and actors guilds, the high stakes involved mean neither side is apt to retire quietly.

In that respect, the network-affiliate relationship remains one of TV’s most enlightening. Because while rooted in history and images of the red, white and blue, as with most disputes in television these days, one suspects the heart of the matter boils down to green.

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Brian Lowry’s column appears on Wednesdays. He can be reached at brian.lowry@latimes.com.