UCC Wants 2 Miami TV Licenses Yanked For Not Running Ad
The United Church of Christ (UCC) filed a petition to deny the license renewal of 2 Miami TV stations for rejecting the group’s controversial ad (CD Dec 2 p12). The group asked the FCC to deny WFOR-TV (Ch. 4, CBS) and WTVJ (Ch. 6, NBC) renewals for failing to recognize the UCC’s limited right of access to purchase air time in the absence of the fairness doctrine.
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At issue is a decision by the stations not to run a 30-sec. TV ad because it was too controversial. The ad is part of an identity campaign to welcome gay and lesbian couples as well as ethnic cultures into congregations. “How can it be in the public interest for television stations to exclude a church’s message of inclusion?” asked Gloria Tristani, managing dir. of the UCC’s Office of Communication.
The networks said they had long-standing policies not to air advocacy or issued-oriented ads. But Media Access Project Pres. Andrew Schwartzman, who helped file the petition, said that policy was illegal in the absence of a fairness doctrine. Tristani said the petition wasn’t based on fairness doctrine rights but on policies inherent in the Communications Act’s public interest standard. “Repeal of the fairness doctrine was supposed to result in the airing of more, not less, controversial programming,” said Angela Campbell, dir. of Georgetown U. Law Center’s Institute for Public Representation. The fairness doctrine, repealed by the FCC in 1987, required broadcasters using public airwaves to provide balance in politically oriented programming. In July, Rep. Hinchey (D-N.Y.) sponsored HR-4069, which would have rescinded the rules and reestablished the fairness doctrine. Conservatives said the bill was an attempt to legislate conservative talk radio off the dial. The bill went nowhere.
The UCC petition cited CBS v. Democratic National Committee, in which the FCC ruled that broadcasters weren’t obligated to sell air time. An appeals court reversed FCC’s ruling, but the Supreme Court reinstated the Commission’s decision, ruling the FCC used the fairness doctrine to assure discussion of controversial issues and varying viewpoints. The Supreme Court asserted that when public interests outweighed private journalistic interests the license renewal process was the appropriate mechanism to deal with any failure to meet the public’s programming needs, the UCC said. The Supreme Court also said Congress left the FCC flexibility to experiment, such as with affording a limited right of access to groups that was both “practicable and desirable.” But there’s not an FCC policy that “assures UCC that its viewpoints on religious expression will be carried,” the UCC said.
The petition comes at license renewal time for Fla., P.R. and V.I. stations. Schwartzman said there was no plan to go after other stations now. The petition targets only the 2 stations owned by the networks and not affiliates. In fact, 6 CBS affiliates and 5 NBC affiliates in “red states” -- including Ohio, Ky. and Okla. -- already ran the ad. “The people in N.Y. are out of touch with their markets,” Schwartzman said.