Jul 30, 2003 -- Press Release: McCain, Feingold, Durbin Move to Boost Broadcast Coverage of Elections, Issues

For Immediate Release
Contact: Mark Glaze, 202-736-2200
July 30, 2003

Trevor Potter: "There's More to Reality TV Than 'Celebrity Survivor.'"

The Campaign Legal Center today commended Senators John McCain (R-AZ), Russ Feingold (D-WI) and Richard Durbin (D-IL) for introducing legislation designed to increase coverage of campaign and election-related broadcast programming.

The "Our Democracy, Our Airwaves" bill, S._____, would require TV and radio stations to air at least two hours per week of candidate and issue-centered programming in the weeks preceding primary and general elections. The bill also revises the "lowest unit cost" rules designed to prevent broadcasters from gouging candidates on ad rates and creates a voucher program to help candidates buy air time for political ads.

As he introduced the bill on Wednesday, July 30, Senator McCain argued that this legislation is essential because "local broadcasters are not adequately covering political campaigns as part of their local newscasts."

Trevor Potter, president and general counsel of the Campaign Legal Center, agreed: "There's more to reality TV than 'Celebrity Survivor,' and there's more to broadcast election coverage than paid 30-second attack ads. The public is being very poorly served by the paltry news coverage of policy issues and political candidates." The Legal Center is part of a large consortium of organizations endorsing the legislation. To see the members of the consortium and read a summary of the bill, please click here.

The cost of broadcast air time is far and away the most expensive part of a political campaign. According to the Campaign Media Analysis Group, federal and state candidates spent an estimated $1 billion in 2002 on political advertising. Moreover, a recent study by the Alliance for Better Campaigns indicated that local television stations increased the prices of candidate ads by more than 50% in the two months preceding the 2002 election.

Despite this price-gouging, and the vast profits it produces, broadcasters still fail to adequately cover elections and campaigns. The Lear Center associated with the University of Southern California's Annenberg School reported that more than half of local news broadcasts ignored the 2002 midterm election campaigns.

According to Potter, "the high cost of reaching the public on the nation's most widely-used communications resources - television and radio - stifles democratic debate, deprives the public of they need to make educated voting choices, and scares many potential candidates away from running in the first place. It has been national policy since the 1920s that radio and TV broadcasters should give something back to the public in return for the use of the airwaves. This policy remains valid - and much needed by the public today."

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