CIPB News & Views June 2000

NEWS & VIEWS ARCHIVES

2000 June
Archives

Advertising, It's in the Eye of the Beholder (June 2000)
Every year corporations spend billions on advertisements. It's no wonder that the ad agencies come up with ever more clever ways to push product at the viewing public, from glitzier commercials, to guerrilla ads, to wallscapes, to temporary tattoos. What's a citizen to do in the face of this onslaught of the senses? Tune out? Give in?

Or retrain your brain with a little Mental Engineering. On this new weekly PBS show, big business is taking a hit where it hurts most: in the ads. For each episode, four panelists led by the show's intrepid host, John Forde, view, scrutinize, deconstruct and dissect four broadcast commercials. Mr. Forde explains, "There's a real political dimension to the show. We're trying to get people to think about themselves as citizens." He should know because he is also the creative force behind Mental Engineering. With no previous TV experience and a little gift money from his parents, he started the show as a cable access production in 1998. "If there's ever been a show that screamed noncommercial television, it's this one. It's thoughtful, it's fun, and it deals with a subject most commercial folks wouldn't touch with a 10-foot pole," praises Bill Hanley at KTCA in St. Paul, the first PBS affiliate to carry the show last year, 49 stations have followed suit. The show also received praise with a Peabody nomination in February.

Each episode of Mental Engineering is currently being produced on a minuscule $4,000 to $5,000 budget, and Mr. Forde makes no bones about wanting to land a real corporate sponsor. Think that means the show holds back when it comes to PBS underwriters, think again. Here's a sample of comments on GM, a major PBS contributor: Mr. Forde, "Why does GM advertising almost universally suck?" Following a brief silence, Greg Fideler, a writer, shrugged and answered, "Because they kill small children."

Mr. Forde doesn't flinch, "If we get sued, they can't take us on the legal front without also engaging us on the public relations front. I look forward to instructing them in the art of public relations jujitsu." Now that's the spirit. If you want to strap on your gi and do some ad grappling with Mr. Forde, check out the video clips and airtimes on the Mental Engineering web site .

An independent trust would encourage more stations like KTCA in St. Paul to support this kind of innovative programming without fear of losing their funding.
— Adapted from The New York Times article, "Making TV By Biting the Hand That Feeds It" by Karen Schoemer

HALF the News that's Fit to Print
June 2000"
Consider this hypothetical situation: a newspaper, distinguished by an immense circulation, an influential editorial voice, and a trophy-case full of journalism awards decides to adopt a new approach towards journalism: the editor explains that exclusives sell and your daily along with two other important newspapers are conspiring together in a coordinated plan with corporations to censor or delete key information from important news stories in exchange for exclusives on big mergers, what the public doesn't know can't hurt them.

This paranoid-sounding conspiracy is what actually happened at the end of May. A publicist hired by United Airlines and US Airways approached the New York Times, the Washington Post, and the Wall Street Journal—the top three newspapers in the country, according to the Columbia Journalism Review—and offered them exclusive details on the pending $11.6 billion merger of the two airlines. The catch? That the newspapers could not print any "outside" (meaning non-United Airlines, non-US Airways) comments or criticism of the merger's anticipated wide-reaching social and economic consequences. The papers agreed to the deal, signing away even the pretense of journalistic integrity. However, the Financial Times (London) website foiled this nefarious scheme by breaking the merger story first, thus negating the "exclusive scoop" deal.

Over their entire history, the corporate media have framed the boundaries of discussion on important issues by using half-truths, questionable sources, and techniques of self-censorship (see Columbia Journalism Review's recent report on self-censorship in the national press). But the New York Times/Wall Street Journal/Washington Post/United Airlines/US Airways conspiracy-that-almost-was throws the veil off of the exercises in mass deception that all too often pass for journalism in the mainstream press.
—Adapted from FAIR, the Washington Post, and the Columbia Journalism Review.

In the age of Bigger is Better, How about a little ANTI-trust?
June 2000
The Telecommunications Act of 1996 set off a wave of corporate deals and mega-mergers in the television and radio industries. This concentration has meant a radical loss of diversity of voices in the media. But just how bad is it? Ben Bagdikian's The Media Monopoly has been counting the number of corporations that own most of every mass medium. The trend is moving toward greater power in fewer hands: 50 corporations in 1983, down to 23 in 1990, and only 10 in 1997. The latest printing this spring, sets the number at just a half-dozen, the media "Big Six." Sounds bad, but wait it's really worse. Bagdikian explains, "The power and influence of the dominant companies are understated by counting them as 'six.' They are intertwined: they own stock in each other, they cooperate in joint media ventures, and among themselves they divide profits from some of the most widely viewed programs on television, cable and movies."

FCC Stewards of the Public Airwaves?
What is the FCC doing to safeguard the public interest from the "Big Six" and other corporate interests? "Not much" is the answer suggested even by the FCC's own review of broadcast ownership rules. The commission concluded that in some situations the cross-ownership rule, which prevents a company from owning both a newspaper and television station in one city, "may not be necessary to protect the public interest." While still preventing the four major networks from acquiring one another, the FCC allowed that one of the four majors may own one of the emerging networks like UPN, WB or PAX. Which means NBC, already owning 32% of PAX, can now buy the remainder of the network from the nations third-largest station owner, Bud Paxson. Radio also lost out with a proposal that would allow companies to own even more stations than they do under current limits.

Norman Solomon sums it up: "We may not like the nation's gigantic media firms, but right now they don't care much what we think. A strong antitrust movement aimed at the Big Six could change such indifference in a hurry." How about an independent public broadcasting to spread the word?
— Adapted from New York Times; The LA Times article "FCC to Propose Easing Broadcast Ownership Rules " by Sallie Hofmeister,and USA Today article "Federal tide may be turning against media mega-mergers" by David Lieberman.

Low Power, High Hopes?
June 2000
The FCC has reportedly received more than 500 applications for low power FM (LPFM) radio licenses as the filing window for the first batch of applicants from 12 states and territories expired June 8. Applicants from the remaining states and territories are slated to file over four staggered periods, the last being May 2001.

The low power radio service was created by an FCC Report and Order last January. Explaining the new service's mission, the FCC predicted that LPFM "will provide opportunities for new voices to be heard…in a manner that best serves the public interest." Localism is the guiding principle behind the LPFM radio initiative. The only groups eligible for licenses are noncommercial educational organizations, non-profit entities, and local governments. Furthermore, the application process is arranged to favor applicants that are committed to local programming. In any competition for local licenses the FCC will give priority to applicants who propose to air a significant percentage of local programming, allow local residents to have air time, and get significant local funding.

Local interest in LPFM is abundant. FCC estimates suggest that over 1000 licenses to broadcast on low power will be granted. Community groups across the country have welcomed the LPFM plan. Youth groups who want to broadcast information about community events, senior citizen community groups, and civic outreach organizations all are applying for a license and the broadcasting range of 3.5 miles it gives them.

But despite this interest and the FCC's lofty predictions, the LPFM initiative has ignited a strong reaction. Commercial broadcasters are the largest sector opposed to LPFM. The National Association of Broadcasters, a lobbyist group for the corporate broadcasting industry, has argued that the LPFM stations will create an "unacceptable" level of signal interference. The NAB is sponsoring a bill that would force the FCC to abort the LPFM project. The plan has come under fire from public broadcasting as well, with NPR voicing similar concerns about signal integrity-concerns.

Still others are suspicious, arguing that public interest standards for high power broadcasters already exist and should be enforced. Did you notice that the language the FCC used when it created LPFM (all that about "serving the public interest") almost echoes the exact words of the 1967 Carnegie Commission's definition of public broadcasting? The FCC, say some skeptics, should enforce the existing regulations and holding mainstream radio stations more accountable to their communities-before shifting the public interest focus from mainstream radio to LPFM. Time will tell if low power truly can meet the public's high hopes-or else it will reveal low power to be a veiled attempt to weaken the public interest in higher-powered broadcasting.
—Adapted from Current (profiles of LPFM-applicant community groups and article on NAB and NPR opposition) and from FCC reports.

From the Horses Mouth: Public Television (PTV) Programmers Speak Out June 2000
Last summer, Independent TeleVision Service (ITVS) convened focus groups of public television programmers in San Francisco, Chicago, Hartford and Columbia, South Carolina. Thirty-seven programmers representing stations in 30 states participated. ITVS produced a report from their responses. Pam Calvert, stations relations and outreach manager for ITVS, shared some of the results with The Independent.

Programmers spoke of political pressure in the form of funding cuts and conservative backlash which have created an environment where "nervousness and chill starts at the top and and filters down to the stations." There is a sense that the PBS national schedule has become "bland" and "irrelevant," with an overemphasis on "balance" resulting in "pabulum." Programmers from all parts of the country spoke of internal pressures to increase annual "numbers" (audience ratings, membership, and underwriting income). The growth of "enhanced underwriting" (commercials) was singled out as leading PTV in a commercial and conservative direction.

Outside the northeast, the sensitivities of religious conservatives have come to play a large role in many stations' programming decisions, particularly regarding abortion and homosexuality due to increased complaints from non-viewers through organized campaigns.

All stressed the importance of programming that would interpret diverse cultures and changing national demographics to "traditional" PTV audiences. Several programmers spoke of the profound ignorance of the white American population and the need for programs directed to white people about diverse cultural communities.

Twenty-one of the 37 programmers claimed an in-house production on a subject of local relevance epitomized their stations at its best. Many stressed their sense that local service distinguishes PTV from all other broadcasters. "Locally produced programming is our reason for being." We couldn't agree more.
— Adapted from The Independent, June 2000.