FCC: Research and ReportsPolitical Advertising Vouchers for Congressional Candidates: What Difference Could They Make? This study by the nonpartisan Campaign Finance Institute finds that the "Our Democracy, Our Airwaves Act" sponsored by Senators McCain and Feingold would likely generate greater electoral competition and enhance voters' knowledge of candidates and political issues.
Read the full study.
Broken Promises: How Digital Broadcasters Are Failing to Serve the Public Interest Local public affairs programming is practically non-existent on digital television, according to a new study by the Media Policy Program of the Campaign Legal Center. Only 0.3% of digital programming focused on local public affairs - compared with 8.8% for reality shows, 6.9% for paid programming and 2.5% for celebrity magazine shows (such as Access Hollywood). The study also found that less than five percent (5%) of all programming aired by digital broadcasters is aired in high-definition (HD), and that there is little evidence that broadcasters are using their multicasting capabilities to provide enhanced public interest service to the local communities to which they are licensed.
Read the full study.
Speeding the DTV Transition: Facts & Policy Options The House is poised to act on legislation to expedite America's DTV transition and set a "hard" deadline for the end of analog broadcasting. This New America Foundation Policy Brief offers solutions to the challenging issues facing Congress as they craft this legislation and reallocate the TV Band spectrum for critical public safety and wireless broadband uses.
Read the full report.
The Fallout From the Telecommunications Act of 1996: Unintended Consequences and Lessons Learned This study by Common Cause tells the story of the Telecommunications Act of 1996 and its aftermath. In many ways, the Telecom Act failed to serve the public and did not deliver on its promise of more competition, more diversity, lower prices, more jobs and a booming economy. Instead, the public got more media concentration, less diversity, and higher prices.
Download the full report (requires Adobe Acrobat).
Local News Coverage of the 2004 Campaigns: An Analysis of Nightly Broadcasts in 11 Markets New research from Lear Center Local News Archive finds that i n the month leading up to Election Day 2004, viewers of local news saw nearly four-and-a-half times more stories about the presidential campaign than they did stories about all other political races combined. Only one third of all campaign stories focused on issues.
Read the full report.
Political Ad Spending on Television Sets New Record: $1.6 Billion Candidates, parties and independent groups spent more than $1.6 billion on television ads in 2004, a record for any campaign year and double the amount spent in the 2000 presidential election, according to figures released by the Alliance for Better Campaigns.
Read more from the Alliance.
Voting in the Dark: An Analysis of 2004 Campaign Coverage by Cleveland's Local TV News Cleveland Newswatch reports that although local television stations make millions of dollars from election advertising, their news programs do a poor job of educating viewers on election issues.
Read the full study.
Look Who's Not Coming to Washington: Qualified Candidates Shut Out by Big Money Large contributions made by a small fraction of Americans unduly influence who runs for office and who wins elections in the United States. Without personal wealth or access to networks of wealthy contributors, many qualified and credible candidates are locked out of contention for federal office—often before voters have the opportunity to register their preferences or hear competing points of view.
Read the full study by U.S. PIRG
Declining Broadcast Coverage Research The Norman Lear Center (Annenberg) Studies:
On July 23, 2003, the Norman Lear Center at the University of Southern California Annenberg School for Communication and the Department of Political Science at the University of Wisconsin-Madison released its report on local TV news coverage of the 2002 general election. In addition to other findings, the study found that large group owners do less local political coverage than small or mid-sized owners.
Click here to view the Lear Center's 2002 general election study.
The Lear Center at the University of Southern California Annenberg School for Communication issued a report in February 2001 regarding the local television coverage of the 2000 Primary and General Elections. Among the report's conclusions were findings that stations fell into two categories: those that made a commitment to the public to offer quality political coverage of the 2000 election, that those that did not.
Research findings were written by Principal Investigator Martin Kaplan and Research Director Matthew Hale. The project was funded by a grant from the Ford Foundation.
Click here to view the Annenberg report on the 2000 General Election in its entirety.
Click here to view the USC report on the 2000 Primary Election in its entirety.
The Center for Media and Public Affairs Studies:
CMPA has conducted several studies and produced press releases relating to news coverage of political campaigns. Below are some of the highlighted statistics from these studies and press releases.
The Decline of Broadcasters' Public Interest Obligations - A Policy Backgrounder The New America Foundation published a brief backgrounder on the steady erosion of political interest obligations.
Click here to view the policy backgrounder.
All Politics is Local: But You Wouldn't Know it by Watching Local TV Local public affairs shows account for less than one half of one percent of all programming on local television stations, according to a study released by the Alliance for Better Campaigns.
Complete Report
The Norman Lear Center: Local TV Coverage of the 2002 Elections On July 23, 2003, the Lear Center Local News Archive (a project of the USC Annenberg School and the University of Wisconsin) released its report on local TV news coverage of the 2002 general election. In addition to other findings, the study found that the majority (56 percent) of newscasts in the weeks leading up to Election Day contained no campaign stories.
Click here to view the Lear Center's study in its entirety.
The Norman Lear Center: Local TV Coverage of the 2000 Campaign The University of Southern California Annenberg School for Communication issued a report in February 2001 regarding the local television coverage of the 2000 Primary and General Elections. Among the report's conclusions were findings that stations fell into two categories: those that made a commitment to the public to offer quality political coverage of the 2000 election, that those that did not.
Research findings were written by Principal Investigator Martin Kaplan and Research Director Matthew Hale. The project was funded by a grant from the Ford Foundation.
Click here to view the USC report on the 2000 General Election in its entirety.
Click here to view the USC report on the 2000 Primary Election in its entirety.
Profiteering on Democracy Local television stations around the country jacked up the prices of candidate ads by an average of more than 50 percent in the two months before the 2002 election, exploiting the campaign-driven spike in demand, according to a new study by the Alliance for Better Campaigns.
Read the study in its entirety.
Does Ownership Matter in Local Television News?: A Five-Year Study of Ownership and Quality The Project for Excellence in Journalism conducted the largest examination ever undertaken of local television news in the United States to deconstruct what local TV news offers citizens. Among their findings: smaller station groups overall tended to produce higher quality newscasts than stations owned by larger companies -- by a significant margin.
Read the PEJ study in its entirety.
What Do We Need to Know?: Lear Center Statement to the FCC Public Forum on Media Consolidation On April 28, 2003, Martin Kaplan, associate dean of the USC Annenberg School for Communication and director of the Norman Lear Center for the study of entertainment, commerce and society, made the following remarks to the FCC Public Forum on Media Consolidation.
Click here to view Kaplan's comments in their entirety.
Alliance for Better Campaigns: Record Political Ad Spending on Television Topped $1 Billion in 2002 On November 11, 2002, the Alliance for Better Campaigns released a press statement highlighting the amount of money spent by candidates, parties and issue groups on television ads in 2002. The amount, totaling $1 billion dollars, was a record amount spent in any given election year and twice what was spent in the 1998 congressional elections.
Click here to view the Alliance for Better Campaigns press release.
Gouging Democracy: How the Television Industry Profiteered on Campaign 2000 Local television stations across the country systematically gouged candidates in the closing months of the 2000 campaign, jacking up the prices of their ads to levels that were far above the lowest candidate rates listed on the stations' own rate cards. They did so despite a 30-year-old federal law designed to protect candidates from such demand-driven price spikes. Click here to view the complete report.
Free and Reduced-Rate Television Time for Political Candidates This 1997 Congressional Research Service report explores the role of television in political elections, and details legislative efforts to provide free or low-cost television time for candidates.
Read the full report (requires Adobe Acrobat).
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