2005 Annual Report - Local TV Content Analysis

Ownership consolidation, declining audiences, and a troubled economic model all created incentives for newsrooms to thin out their newscasts and structure them with a ratings-focused approach. But regulatory pressure may exert an influence that will push newsrooms in an entirely different direction.

Television stations are given an exclusive license to broadcast over a defined portion of the publicly owned spectrum, and in turn are expected to operate in "the public interest." But the term has never been codified precisely. Stations have argued that they meet their public-interest obligations by forgoing a significant amount of advertising revenue in order to broadcast things like public service announcements, disaster alerts, telethons, and more. A survey of TV and radio stations by the National Association of Broadcasters (NAB) valued local TV stations' community service contribution at roughly $2.9 billion.¹⁰

In early 2004, however, Chairman Michael Powell of the Federal Communications Commission hinted that he took a skeptical view of those activities: "I don't think there's anything special about a broadcaster sponsoring a walk for breast cancer.... I don't think you should go out and have complete garbage on TV and then buy your way out by sponsoring events in the community."¹¹ In the fall, the FCC issued a decision requiring stations broadcasting multiple digital signals to devote at least three hours a week to children's programming for each channel they transmit, one of the first content-based mandates in several years. Its actions led many to suspect the FCC might move toward more regulation of content, though the outlook on this front is unclear in light of Powell's resignation in early 2005.

The debate over the extent to which the FCC can regulate television content was highlighted in 2004 by both the Janet Jackson Super Bowl incident and the agency's ultimately failed attempt to rewrite media ownership rules. (See Ownership.) In hopes of avoiding on-air profanity, the networks instituted tape-delay policies during live events such as NASCAR races and awards shows. On the local level, the FCC has proposed that TV stations keep 90-day archives of their programming to facilitate indecency investigations.¹² Such requirements, some critics worry, could have a chilling effect on television content.