JOINT NETWORK ADS SAY FCC'S NEW OWNERSHIP RULES WON'T WORK
In an effort to generate support for controversial new FCC media ownership rules, broadcast networks Viacom/CBS, Fox, NBC and ABC welcomed Congress back to work this week by running political ads designed to help persuade members that voters didn’t care who owned their local TV stations and didn’t want lawmakers regulating who can.
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The ads in Capitol Hill publications The Hill and Roll Call Tues. featured data from a networks-financed public opinion survey by GOP pollster Frank Luntz that they said indicated members of Congress who wanted to roll back media ownership limits fell “squarely on the opposite side of public opinion.” In the poll, based on a survey of 700 persons, 54% said Congress shouldn’t roll back the FCC decision that would increase potential audience reach by network-owned TV stations to 45% from 35%, and 26% said Congress should step in. The survey found 87% of those polled believed they had an adequate number of choices for receiving news and 92% believed that overall choices to receive news over the last 15 years had increased either significantly (70%) or somewhat (22%).
Critics assailed the poll Tues. Center for Digital Democracy Exec. Dir. Jeff Chester said it was a “desperate attempt to save the networks’ political skin as Congress reconvenes. Luntz’s spin for the networks is a good example of how they fail to honestly inform the American public about the issues they lobby on.” Chester called it a one-sided poll and said Luntz had failed to adequately inform those being questioned for the survey.
People understand the relationship between who owns their local TV stations and the programming they receive, Media Access Project President Andrew Schwartzman said. “These were clearly sequential, loaded questions,” he said. “Frankly, I'm surprised they didn’t get more than 78% of the respondents to say ‘no politician should get between me and my TV.’ The blatancy of these tactics is understandable, but I believe they're unlikely to be persuasive.”
NBC Washington lobbyist Robert Okun defended the Luntz poll and suggested it could change the congressional debate over media ownership rules. “This brings a new level of data and information to the debate, and removes some of the emotion that’s involved,” he said. “The results were sort of startling, considering that they run contrary to what the opposition has been saying. It shows that the facts are not fitting everyone’s preconceived notions.”
Network officials wouldn’t comment on how much they paid for the ads, or which network, if any, took the lead in the effort. A one-time, full-page color ad in Roll Call costs $9,890, according to the paper’s national rate card, and a similar ad in The Hill is $9,400.
No one should be surprised the networks fired back in this debate, said Adam Thierer, dir., telecom studies at the Cato Institute: “The networks weren’t going to lay down and play dead. They had to fight back and try to maintain their ability to change, evolve and compete in an increasingly competitive modern marketplace.” While Thierer said he was not a fan of public opinion polls, he said Luntz’s survey supported his long-stated argument that TV viewers rarely complained about media ownership issues. “The notion of the ‘death of diversity’ and ‘lack of localism’ doesn’t wash with most people,” Thierer argued. “If anything, people lament about the overwhelming choices they have on television.” -- J.L. Laws