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The National Association of Broadcasters came out swinging in an emergency motion today at the U.S. Court of Appeals in Washington. The trade group wants the court to stay an FCC ruling that requires stations to put on the Web information about political ad sales that they already must make public on paper. The NAB says that TV stations will be “at a distinct disadvantage to their non-broadcast competitors” if they have to post the ad rates online after a sale. It would especially help cable and satellite providers — who aren’t subject to the FCC rule — to adjust ad prices to win business from broadcasters. Indeed, the filing says, the damage to stations’ ad sales efforts would be so great that it “outweighs the benefits” to people who want to know who’s spending how much on TV to influence their opinions in an election. In April, the FCC adopted its new rules requiring the top four stations in the 50 largest markets to send their political ad data to the regulators for online posting. The rules were published last week in the Federal Register, putting them on track to take effect in early August. FCC chairman Julius Genachowski said at the NAB’s annual confab in April that opposing the online disclosure plan is “against technology, against transparency and against journalism.” Public interest and free speech groups have also endorsed the FCC’s new rules.
Broadcasters Tell Court That Political Ad Rules Will Lead To “Irreparable Harm”
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I’m not understanding this… if they already have to make sales figures public in writing, how is it that much worse to do so in digital format as well?
It would be one thing for them to make it public if they already weren’t doing so, but to get bent out of shape over a procedural change is a bit silly. Cable and Satellite broadcasters have access to these numbers anyway, so who’s eyes are they afraid of exactly?
“FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski said at the NAB’s annual confab in April that opposing the online disclosure plan is “against technology, against transparency and against journalism.” Public interest and free speech groups have also endorsed the FCC’s new rules.”
Oh, well there you go.
Yeah the cable and satellite companies certainly have the ability to collect that data now so their opposition is weird.
The reality is they don’t want advertisers to see this data easily.
News orgs tally every other aspect of electoral races, why not this? Oh of course; it involves THEM.
Total and Complete Silliness, but the lawyers must be LOVING this!
Broadcasters are operating on PUBLIC AIRWAVES. I notice they leave that out when it serves their purpose. Regardless who their competitors are, if you are operating on PUBLIC FREQUENCIES, some of your activities and records should be PUBLIC….hence, the stations’ FCC requirements to have PUBLIC files for PUBLIC inspection.
And this idea that others knowing their rates puts them at a disadvantage….please! Clients (ADVERTISERS) keep copies of station rate cards and give them to salesmen from the competition all the time!!! In addition, when clients get spot buys for a reduced price, they always show the deal to salesmen or reps from other stations to get at least the same deal or better. The NAB isn’t fooling those of us who have been in the business.
So if the logic works “they’re already making it public, so what’s the big deal?”, then this should also ring true, “if it’s already public, why the push for online access?”.
The first step is scanned documents. Sounds simple enough… but you already have folks wanting them SEARCHABLE. The only way to do that is to have stations manually input all data into forms, which I submit will be the next step. Yes, that will be even more burdensome than this current system. And how magnanimous of the FCC to allow stations to choose whether they keep a paper file… HA! What station WOULDN’T keep a paper file? This doubles work, period. And again, as this information is ALREADY public, as noted, the rationale for this extra work is dubious at best.
The assertion that this will somehow expose stations’ low rates, however, doesn’t bear with facts. The FCC has long allowed stations to sell ‘classes of time’ within dayparts. So the LUR is truely the LUR only within that class of time. Most candidates don’t want preemptions, so they opt for the higher class of time (or at the very least, not the bottom). There are various nuances to how time is sold and the choices available to candidates, and I’ve personally witnessed candidates and agency’s lack of FCC knowledge… so I can see a definite threat of more frivolous complaints about how candidate A paid more than candidate B… regardless of the fact that they both were given the same choices…
Just another example of “sounds reasonable to me” policy ideas handed down from on high with little regard not just for the folks it affects, but for its very need.
Ug…