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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.'"
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.
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.
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.
"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.
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.
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"?
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
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....
"I do not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it"
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.
It is a miracle that curiosity survives formal education. - Einstein