FCC To Require TV Stations To Post Rates For Campaign Ads

bs0d3 writes "The FCC has voted to require broadcast TV stations to post online advertising rates they charge political candidates and advocacy groups. The vote came despite strong opposition from many broadcasters. 'By law, television stations offer political candidates advertising rates that are much lower than those offered to other advertisers.' Advocates argue the public should have easy access to information about how much candidates and other groups are spending on television to suck in voters. 'Network-affiliated stations in the top 50 markets will have six months to comply. For all others, the deadline is 2014.'"

Comments

Misleading

[ral315]

This is technically true, but that's not the story. The story isn't that the rates will be available, it's that we'll know how much candidates spend, and where they're spending it.

The rates themselves are, by law, the lowest rate that the stations charge (to avoid stations charging different rates based on whether they support that candidate) - so that's not really that informative. It's actually knowing that Candidate X purchased 800 points of TV time in Market A and 1200 points in Market B that is interesting. Currently, this information is available, but only by driving to the stations during business hours to view them, which is of course not very useful.

Re:Misleading

[wvmarle]

The rates themselves are, by law, the lowest rate that the stations charge (to avoid stations charging different rates based on whether they support that candidate)

In this line: in how far are stations allowed to accept/reject certain ads?

For starters they have limited time in which to put advertisements (is there any regulation on that in the US? Such as no more than so many minutes per hour for ads on a TV channel?). So one candidate may simply buy up all advertising slots, and bring a few five-minute ads every hour.

Secondly I know advertisements are sometimes rejected based on "objectional content" - content or a product that the media channel doesn't agree with or whatever.

Re:Misleading

[Registered Coward v2]

Currently, this information is available, but only by driving to the stations during business hours to view them, which is of course not very useful.

That is really the key point of this rule - it makes the information easily accessible; something it currently isn't. A recent NPR piece on this vote pointed out that stations can charge copying fees and one charged 50 cents per page which limits availability from both an access an economic perspective.

At least broadcasters are being honest by saying they don't want their best prices to be too public because it will cost them money. OTOH, if I bought ad space i'd take the time to get this info from any stations where I was doing a buy so I could see how much of a premium they were demanding and try to negotiate a lower rate. I would not be surprised if some companies already do that; this just males it easier and potentially more wide spread.

Re:Misleading

[Registered Coward v2]

The rates themselves are, by law, the lowest rate that the stations charge (to avoid stations charging different rates based on whether they support that candidate)

In this line: in how far are stations allowed to accept/reject certain ads?

For starters they have limited time in which to put advertisements (is there any regulation on that in the US? Such as no more than so many minutes per hour for ads on a TV channel?). So one candidate may simply buy up all advertising slots, and bring a few five-minute ads every hour.

Secondly I know advertisements are sometimes rejected based on "objectional content" - content or a product that the media channel doesn't agree with or whatever.

In the US, any qualified candidate (such as being on a ballot) has the right to run uncensored ads at the lowest available rate, as defined by US law and FCC rules. That doesn't mean he or she can buy up all the ad time - there are equal access rules to prevent that nor does a station have to sell them a spot for any specific broadcast, so a station can refuse to run an ad during the Super Bowl (as one did recently), they only have to provide "reasonable" access.

Of course, someone could get on the ballot and then basically run what ever ads they want; and if a state has easy ballot access laws someone could game the system.

Odd sounding argument

[Tim Ward]

"'By law, television stations offer political candidates advertising rates that are much lower than those offered to other advertisers"

This sounds really bizarre to those of us who live in places where, by law, television statements may not carry political advertising.

We sort-of have this theory that elections should be won, not bought. But only sort-of, mind, because money obviously still makes a difference. In my council ward for example I'm not allowed to spend more than a few hundred pounds getting elected - this is trivial for me, I just write a cheque, but it could be a struggle for others.

Re:Odd sounding argument

[OrangeTide]

if you lower the price, then you level the playing field. If campaigns had to pay full price for political ads, then it really would be about who could raise the most money. (it still sort of is, but maybe slightly less so because of this law)

Although right now we just saturate the airwaves with political ads, until everyone gets sick of it and refuses to vote out of protest for the annoyance it causes.

Re:Odd sounding argument

[Tim Ward]

"if you lower the price, then you level the playing field"

Well yes, in the UK the price is zero for this reason, but the amount of free time that the TV channels have to give to the candidates is limited to a few minutes - that's a few minutes for the whole campaign, not per day or per hour!

People still get sick of the ads, sorry "party political broadcasts", and nobody much watches them apart from other politicians.

Re:Odd sounding argument

[wvmarle]

Lowering the price doesn't necessarily level the playing field.

It allows candidates with smaller budgets to enter the game, but it also allows bigger budgets to simply buy more advertising time.

The only way leveling the playing field in this would be to 1) prohibit political commercials and 2) oblige TV stations to set aside a certain time for political broadcasts, that is then shared equally between the various parties/candidates that participate in an election. This way every single candidate has their say 15 minutes of TV time, and all have the same amount of time to spread their views.

Re:Odd sounding argument

[CrimsonAvenger]

The only way leveling the playing field in this would be to 1) prohibit political commercials and 2) oblige TV stations to set aside a certain time for political broadcasts, that is then shared equally between the various parties/candidates that participate in an election. This way every single candidate has their say 15 minutes of TV time, and all have the same amount of time to spread their views.

This won't level the playing field. The Incumbent always has the opportunity to try to bribe voters with a new law giving them a tax break of some sort. Which proposed new law, even if it never becomes an actual law, gets the Incumbent's name on the Evening News, and the morning talk shows, and the newspapers, and that sort of thing.

All of which is free publicity.

Eliminating political advertising altogether (which would pretty much require repeal of the First Amendment) would just make sure that the only political candidates you ever heard mentioned would be the incumbents....

Superpac funders and common sence.

[anthony_greer]

I like this but I wish the FEC would grow a pair and make PACs and SuperPacs identify their donation sources. Tehy all have these cutesy names that mean nothing, you will hear things like "this ad paid for by Americans for an America in the tradition of Apple Pie and Chevrolet PAC" but for all you know that money could be coming from some oil man who just wants to have a friendly white house to his needs. Its no different than bill naming, if you want to take away freedoms and civil libertarians get upset, just call it the prevent terrorism and child porn act and they will shut up...

The problem is also education, that is to say that so many people, after receiving a k-12 education in the US are so fucking stupid that they just believe the crap in these ads and propaganda in general, some critical thinking amongst the 90 percent who just go all out blindly for one party or the other would solve many of our issues.

or maybe honesty in superpac naming

[anthony_greer]

just had a crazy idea, require honest names for superpacs, like "Halliburton execs for Romney" or "Goldman Sachs managers for Obama"

Re:or maybe honesty in superpac naming

[Black Parrot]

just had a crazy idea, require honest names for superpacs, like "Halliburton execs for Romney" or "Goldman Sachs managers for Obama"

"Rich donors for the Rich"

Re:or maybe honesty in superpac naming

[hairyfeet]

Won't work and here is why: Shell corps, which the USA really doesn't do little if anything to regulate. You see all GS or Halliburton would do is set up a dummy corp called "Freedom for the free' or some other bullshit name, bounce the money through two or three shell corps before it got to FFTF and voila! same problem we have now.

Personally i have serious doubts anything can be done about the system until it collapses which i truly believe is inevitable now. The corruption is just too deep and too entrenched and any solutions would cause loss of power to those top 5% who frankly won't stand for it. Instead what we will see is BOTH sides grabbing more and more power for themselves, BOTH sides giving away money to their masters as fast as they can, and BOTH sides making sure the printing presses spin like tops.

So I'm sorry friend and as much as the few optimists left like to call me a bastard for saying this I believe it to be true nonetheless, the only thing you can do now is grab as much for you and yours as you can and try to be as ready as you can be for the fall. Some have said that attitude will hasten the fall, but so what? if it crashes in 10 years or 15 will it really make any difference? The jobs are gone, the factories closed or closing, nearly half don't pay any taxes because they are too poor and more and more of the population can't even eat or clothe themselves without government assistance. and in all of this there is NOTHING you can do about it because you don't have enough money to buy congressmen and votes are worthless when both sides have been bought.

So grab what you can and be ready, because even someone with a sixth grade education knows you can't spend more than you bring in forever but with both sides so bought and paid for and their refusal to see this most basic of realities means all you can do is be ready for when the whole rotten thing comes crashing down.

6 Months???

[jpapon]

Network-affiliated stations in the top 50 markets will have six months to comply.

6 Months, eh? You mean, the beginning of November? Once the election is pretty much over?

America has the best government money can buy...

[SpzToid]

...so it is only logical someone needs to be there to sell it. Google. Fox News. And so on. The U.S. Government (U.S. capitol-ism) is a business with all the implied stakeholders that defines capitalism.

Re:Google should be included too

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh hai thar, TechNY/TechLA/WhoeverYouWereLastWeek with your random jabs at Google at the same minute as the article goes live. Funny seeing you speaking about astroturfing.

And how exactly short plain text ads clearly marked as such are an "astroturfing platform"? Astroturfing is pushing your employer's agenda without disclosing your affiliation - kinda like you do.

Re:The most shocking news would be....

[Anonymous Coward]

Look, I'm not going to argue for or against the veracity of your comments here. I just need to say the following.

Goddamn man, you must have one hell of a vendetta against Fox News to use the article/summary as a springboard into a rant about Fox News and its bias. Hell, after the first sentence, your paragraph has extremely little, if anything, to do with the article at hand and solely becomes about how Fox News has infected the news cycle.

There's a time and a place for things. And, I suppose, you follow the idea that you should make your own time and place.

Re:Technocracy

[Black Parrot]

Well if everyone is so fucking stupid then perhaps we should switch to a Technocratic-oligarchy instead of a Democracy. There have been several times in US history where powerful people suggested we discourage the stupid masses from being involved in democratic elections.

With "the stupid masses" defined as "anyone who disagrees with me"?

Re:Dear American television watching public

[GoodNewsJimDotCom]

Right, let me amend my original comment: Gather bribes(campaign contributions) to get money. Use money to pay for polls to know what people want. Use money to pay for TV ads to tell the people what they want. When elected, do whatever the people who bribed you tell you to do.

Re:Alternative solution

[Black Parrot]

Display how much was paid to air the ad as a watermark in a corner of the screen when the ad is aired.

Better yet, display a dynamic overlay that shows the upper bound on your IQ if you believe what is being said.

Re:America has the best government money can buy..

[causality]

they should just pay the voters directly

They do. If you're a minority they call it EBT.

If you're white they call it earned income tax credit.

If you're old, they call it Medicare and they call it prescription drug benefits.

They promise to tweak one or those or the others depending on which votes they're lacking in the current campaign. But the old people seem the most popular.

Re:America has the best government money can buy..

[Dragon Bait]

They promise to tweak one or those or the others depending on which votes they're lacking in the current campaign. But the old people seem the most popular.

Old people are the most popular because old people are most likely to vote.

The under 20 crowd is the least likely to vote, so deficit spending is okay (and deficit spending is going to negatively impact the under 20 crowd the most).

Re:America has the best government money can buy..

[ooshna]

Your ignorant. If your poor they call it EBT, if your middle class, they call it earned income credit, if your old they call it Medicare, and if your rich its called tax breaks.

Re:America has the best government money can buy..

[BlueStrat]

The U.S. Government (U.S. capitol-ism) is a business with all the implied stakeholders that defines crony-fascism.

FTFY to more-accurately reflect reality. BTW, it isn't limited to one political party either, so this is not a partisan attack. A pox on both their houses in this case.

Strat

Re:America has the best government money can buy..

[burningcpu]

"Your ignorant" Lol.

Re:America has the best government money can buy..

[TubeSteak]

You're ignorant. If you're poor they call it EBT,

I was going to bring this up as well.
Misinformation like "welfare is for minorities" exists only because certain groups are playing racial politics.

The majority of Americans on welfare benefits are white.
The majority of Americans on medicaid are white.

Just so everyone understands this:
As a percentage of their demographic, more minorities are using government support programs.
As a percentage of the population, more white people are using government support programs.