Broadcasters profit “from elections while polluting political discourse,” Free Press said...

Broadcasters profit “from elections while polluting political discourse,” Free Press said in a report Thursday on TV political ads, which it said are expected to cost $3 billion this year. TV stations aren’t giving viewers enough information about who’s behind the ads, said the nonprofit, which seeks more broadcast disclosure and opposes industry mergers and acquisitions. “Instead of exposing this runaway spending and separating fact from fiction in their news reporting, television broadcasters are lining their pockets and leaving the electorate none the wiser,” it said. Free Press asked the FCC to not allow more media M&A as it reviews ownership rules and instead “curtail the trend of cross-ownership that allows one company to own several broadcast stations and a major daily newspaper in a single market.” The agency should also require broadcasters to put information on political ads online, which the FCC has proposed to do over objections of industry (CD Jan 25 p2), and require political ads “to feature a stand-alone disclaimer naming the top contributors to the organization or entity sponsoring the spot,” Free Press said (http://xrl.us/bmpvzi). Many TV stations are doing their job of informing viewers about candidates, and Hearst TV is among the broadcasters that give them free airtime, a company spokesman told us. He said Hearst TV has said (http://xrl.us/bmpv3c) it will give candidates 12 minutes of free programming every weekday in the month before primary and general elections at its 25 stations that produce news. That’s “more than double the five minutes recommended by the Gore Commission in 1999,” the spokesman said. The premise of Free Press’s report -- that there’s too little coverage of elections -- “seems shaky,” an NAB spokesman said. “Americans see and hear every day on many broadcast stations” such information, he continued. “Free Press cites discredited research as the basis for additional rules on broadcasting. This ‘research’ only counts political coverage that occurs during the narrow timeframe of weekday evening newscasts, thus ignoring campaign coverage on morning news programs, noon news, weekend public affairs shows, televised debates, State of the Union speeches and political coverage on local broadcast station websites."