(Reuters) – Political advertising contracts with broadcasters are moving from filing cabinets in
television studio basements to the Internet for all to view.
The Federal Communications Commission adopted a rule on Friday that will force broadcasters to reveal
online who is paying for campaign ads and just how much they are shelling out.
The data, to come initially from the
four biggest TV broadcasters in the top 50 media markets, is expected to provide insight on campaign spending wars ahead of
the November congressional and presidential elections.
“In this kind of day and age, this kind of transparency is a
no-brainer and it’s something that’s needed,” said Mary Boyle, spokeswoman for the Common Cause good-government group that
supports the online disclosure effort.
The FCC agreed to the rule despite warnings from broadcasters who said the
conversion will be costly and unfairly expose their advertising rates to rivals.
Republican Commissioner Robert
McDowell dissented to portions of the order, sympathizing with the broadcasters’ arguments.
TV stations have been
making public records of campaign advertising buys and other community-related issues since 1938 as part of their public
interest obligation.
These records include detailed information on who paid for political ads, key personnel of the
groups buying ads, when political ads aired and rejections of requests to buy air time.
Obtaining these files is
currently a time-consuming, labor-intensive task, requiring multiple trips to TV station studios and money to pay for
photocopies of the documents.
Going forward, these documents must now be uploaded to a database hosted on the FCC’s
website, beginning 30 days after the rule receives approval from the Office of Management and Budget. The agency expects
swift approval as the rule does not require new disclosures, just a new format.
The four biggest broadcasters are ABC,
operated by Disney Co, CBS Corp, News Corp’s Fox, and NBC, controlled by Comcast Corp.
Smaller operators and stations
in smaller markets will have another two years to comply.
BURDEN VS TRANSPARENCY
Broadcasters unsuccessfully
tried to get support on the currently 3-member FCC panel for a compromise proposal that would allow them to leave out
specific ad rate data but disclose the aggregate amount of political spending by buyers.
“It makes no sense for us to
be put at a competitive disadvantage when our competitors don’t face those same sort of mandates,” said Dennis Wharton,
executive vice president of communications for the National Association of Broadcasters.
Republican Representative Lee
Terry told reporters on Thursday that he did not think it was appropriate to put this added burden on broadcasters. He said
he has some discomfort when a government agency gets involved in political subjects.
Public interest groups countered
that access to the more detailed data was necessary to ensure broadcasters were following the letter of the law when it came
to giving political candidates fair pricing and equal opportunities for air time.
“If you don’t have access to this
data in its granular form, there’s no way to enforce it, there’s no way to alert the FCC to a violation, and there’s no
way to tell if they are stacking the deck in the first place,” said Free Press senior policy counsel Corie Wright.
The
increased transparency comes as political spending has shot up in recent years, thanks to outside groups known as “Super
PACs” that can raise and spend unlimited amounts to help politicians, as long as they do not coordinate with official
campaigns.
These independent “super” political action committees have already spent nearly $104 million this campaign
cycle compared with only $26.8 million spent in the same time period during the 2008 election.
The FCC said it would
cost as little as $80 to $400 per station for broadcasters to begin uploading large paper files.
Democrat Anna Eshoo,
who chairs the House Commerce subcommittee on communications and technology, has thrown her support behind the disclosure
requirement and has blasted broadcasters’ objections.
“The idea that broadcasters say this is going to cost money is
laughable. Anyone here think that broadcasters are not going to do well in this political season with political advertising?”
she said at a computer and technology industry forum on Thursday.
(Reporting By Jasmin Melvin; Additional reporting by
Alina Selyukh; Editing by Tim Dobbyn)