ALLIANCE DISPUTES NAB ON PRICE GOUGING; SENATE TIGHTENS LUC
NAB’s answer to charges that broadcasters “gouged” candidates in 2000 campaigns by legally overcharging under provisions of lowest unit charge (LUC) of Communications Act (CD March 15 p3) “does not rebut a single claim” of such gouging made by Alliance for Better Campaigns. At least, that is position of Alliance in letter -- along with proposed bill that would require TV stations to give free time to candidates -- sent to all members of Congress and media.
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Letters arrived in congressional offices as Senate Wed. passed amendment 70-30 to campaign reform legislation being debated on floor that would significantly change LUC requirements. Amendment, by Sen. Toracelli (D-N.J.), would require stations to offer LUC for any time period in preceding year before election on nonpreemptible basis. Under current law, candidate purchases under LUC are preemptible -- which, TV’s critics charge, has led to industry “gouging” of candidates to pay higher rate to guarantee time and place of their spots.
In letter to members of Congress, Alliance Exec. Dir. Paul Taylor said that rather than rebutting gouging charge, NAB’s statement “affirms the report’s central conclusion… that the LUC system that governs the pricing of broadcast ads for candidates has become an empty shell… Our report documents how television stations kept jacking up those ‘multiple lowest unit charges’ throughout the campaign season last fall.” NAB response, Taylor said, also documents “the pressure on candidates to buy ads at the most expensive of these ever-rising” LUCs.
Collapse of LUC system is “a powerful argument in support” of mandatory free TV time for candidates, Taylor said. Moreover, he said, mandatory free time “would be an appropriate way to reclaim… a small public interest payback for the $70 billion in free [DTV] spectrum that Congress granted” TV stations in upcoming switch to digital transmissions.
In unrelated development, study released Wed. reported that in top 75 TV markets during 2000 campaigns, 839,243 political commercials were aired, up from 302,377 in 1998 -- non- Presidential election year. Study by U. of Wis. political scientist Kenneth Goldstein and Brennan Center at N.Y.U. School of Law, said TV spots in 2000 cost $623 million by “conservative estimate” and were “fueled by an avalanche of soft money.” Local spots for congressional candidates totaled 314,023, up from 235,791 in 1998 election cycle, study reported, while ads by interest groups increased to 409,496 from 66,586. Presidential candidates in 2000 ran 115,724 TV spots, study said. Democrats had “slight advantage” in advocacy ads last year, Republicans in 1998. Without campaign finance reform, “new factors may well make the 2002 campaign worse,” Goldstein said. “Between congressional redistricting and an evenly divided Senate… we will only see a continued and dramatic increase in soft money television advertising of every kind.”