Reflections on 50 years of representing local TV broadcasting

In my more than 50 years of representing local television broadcasters at the FCC, in Congress, before the courts and in dealings with related industries, I have been struck by the indifference and at times downright hostility directed at local television stations, and, by implication, their viewers, and by the damage this attitude continues to cause.

The public in communities broadcasters serve does not share this antagonism. There, broadcasters are widely recognized as important and respected leaders. Stations are appreciated for the services they provide—for local news, weather, sports, and local emergency alerts, but also for support for local organizations and civic activities. Polls show that the public turns to local television as its favored source of news and one it considers the most reliable and credible.

{mosads}In a total disconnect from viewers, some regulators, legislators, and the public interest community fail to acknowledge the benefits provided by local broadcasters. Rival industries exploit this attitude. I say this while admiring our public servants at the FCC and in Congress, respecting other industry representatives and public interest groups, and counting many as friends.

The most frequently heard criticisms of local broadcasting are that it is not innovative, that it received its spectrum for free, and that the Internet will magically provide the same locally oriented services as local television stations¾despite the absence of any evidence to support that blind faith.

Various factors explain this dismissiveness: (1) a myopic fascination with the new as opposed to a broadcast service that has persisted nearly 100 years by constantly and, often, proactively embracing change; (2) an unjustified elitism toward merely “common” free broadcast services coupled with elites’ view that their conception of what the pubic needs should trump what the public, in fact, wants; (3) the anti-broadcast campaigns of commercial rivals and industries whose interests conflict with broadcasters’ interests; (4) the fact that broadcasters can speak in many voices because of the diverse ownership of the industry, while two to four individual companies or even individuals can speak for the cable, satellite and wireless industries; and (5) being among the most heavily regulated industries, broadcasting is a ready target of pleas by its opponents for government intervention tilting the scales against it in ways that would be unthinkable in other commercial relationships.

Denigration of local broadcasting causes two serious harms.  First, the FCC and Congress erode local broadcasting’s ability to provide the local/national service on which the public relies and to adapt that service to new technologies, new viewer needs and an ever-changing business environment.  Second, a knee-jerk negativity toward broadcasters’ policy positions means that regulators make policy choices that seriously damage the public that regulators have pledged to serve.

The industries that attack broadcasting fail to realize broadcasting’s vital role in the overall interdependent market environment in which those very industries operate. Public interest groups should long ago have realized that local broadcasting is the golden goose that they have been demeaning for 50 years with little regard for the essential health of the services it provides to the public. It is one thing to urge improvements in local television service. It is another to advocate regulatory or legislative changes that would marginalize the public’s local station services or block them from embracing change, as some public interest groups did when broadcasters pioneered the shift to digital technology some 15 years ago and are doing today as broadcasters seek to move to next-generation digital services.

Broadcasters have proposed creative solutions to Congress and the FCC, particularly with respect to accommodating spectrum issues, but these solutions have often been met with resistance rather than given a fair hearing. Broadcasters also have played a constructive role with respect to the National Broadband Plan and the incentive auction proposals¾a role that has gone unacknowledged, to the detriment of the FCC’s deliberations and the quality of the legitimate debate about these two issues. The government also is turning a deaf ear to broadcasters’ positions on current FCC proposals that would gut protections for intellectual property rights in broadcasters’ programming, which are the foundation for the services they provide to their communities.

It is blindly inconsistent for so many government thinkers, public interest groups and scholars¾all well-meaning and smart¾to lament the digital divide, while at the same time advocating regulatory and legislative positions that would increasingly lead to a video divide, on the wrong side of which will fall the poor, minorities, rural Americans and many elderly.

One cannot solve a problem unless the problem is acknowledged. The first step is for all parties to realize that these problems exist and damage the public’s local television service and the quality of public debate and decision-making. Concrete steps should be taken to ameliorate the problems caused by the incessant and often ignorant denigration of local television station services and broadcaster advocacy. Not all problems can be cured by government fiat. What is most needed is a change in attitude. This is just as true for private parties and public interest groups as for the government.

Blake is a retired partner of the law firm Covington & Burling where he headed the firm’s Communications and Media practice, chaired the firm’s management committee, and was president of the Federal Communications Bar Association.