Make the TV Networks Like Any Other Company
Kevin Drum argued yesterday that the broadcast TV networks should be freed from their anachronistic quasi-obligation to be at the president’s beck and call when he wants to hold a prime time press conference.
I agree, but there’s an important caveat here. The traditional basis for the formal and informal requirement that the networks serve the public interest by carrying this sort of programming has to do with the fact this is the price you pay for your broadcast license. In the modern day, the rights to portions of the electromagnetic spectrum currently being monopolized by television broadcasters are enormously valuable. If that spectrum was put up for bid, then TV stations would need to compete with cell phone companies, wireless internet providers, etc. And the prices they’d wind up paying might prove to be quite high.
In the era of cable and satellite TV and the internet, both sides of the public service broadcasting for free spectrum exchange are obsolete. It would make sense to cancel both of them. But of course the last thing in the world TV executives want to do is give up their free spectrum rights. So they really have no standing to be whining about being burdened with the occasional press conference. The best thing to do, however, would be to ditch the traditions conceived of during the pre-cable era and also end the spectrum giveaways.
17 Responses to “Make the TV Networks Like Any Other Company”
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May 9th, 2009 at 4:06 pm
> The traditional basis for the formal and informal
> requirement that the networks serve the public
> interest by carrying this sort of programming
> has to do with the fact this is the price you pay
> for your broadcast license. In the modern day,
> the rights to portions of the electromagnetic
> spectrum currently being monopolized by television
> broadcasters are enormously valuable. If that
> spectrum was put up for bid
That is what the conversion to digital broadcast TV being completed this year was about though. The original incredibly enormously valuable land grant of spectrum given to the TV broadcasters in the 1920s was taken away and a moderately valuable segment sufficient to cram all the old analog channels in a digital signals replaced it.
Where that old analog TV space is going is the real question and goldmine of the next 20 years.
Cranky
May 9th, 2009 at 4:11 pm
The networks are obsolete. Whether it’s prime-time coverage of presidential press conferences or children’s programming. I remember 10-20 years ago there was a huge fight over how much quality children’s programming the networks were required to broadcast to meet their public service obligations. Today as a parent of 3 young girls I can tell you that the networks are completely irrelevant when it comes to children’s broadcasting. Sure, they might show a few shows during certain children’s viewing hours saturday mornings or whatever. But I’m willing to bet that 99% of families that WANT to provide TV for their kids have access to Noggin, Nick, Discovery Kids, and Disney Channels. You just Tivo your kids shows and then you have instant access anytime.
Same goes for presidential news conferences. They will always be picked up by CNN, MSNBC, and C-SPAN. And probably NPR and PBS. Most Americans who want to watch can do so. It’s kind of like when Monday Night Football moved to ESPN. Now no one even notices the difference.
Let the networks do what they want and make them pay for their spectrum.
May 9th, 2009 at 4:22 pm
To add to what Cranky said: ‘Modern day’ technology has ‘tightened’ up the signals (even the analog) so that there is a lot less interference between carrier signals than there would have been in the 50’s and 60’s. I can’t find on the net when the last time a brand new VHF or UHF TV license was issued in the country, but I would venture to guess that a lack of new applications* has little to do with the spectrum being ‘full’ and more on the simple economics. Radio, with different economies of scale then TV has less separation now between frequencies than I remember as a kid, and it seems a lot more stations, both in english and other languages.
*for english language stations.
May 9th, 2009 at 4:27 pm
Maybe for-profit enterprises should have to pay a portion of their profits in exchange for leasing spectrum space. Whatever is done should NOT INCLUDE auctioning off spectrum space in a once and for all sale. The spectrum should remain a public resource, and to the extent possible free for community/non-profit broadcasters (e.g., LPFM stations).
May 9th, 2009 at 4:58 pm
First of all, what a bunch of whiny ass titty babies.
Secondly, a network broadcaster freed of the obligation to provide programming in the public interest will stop paying for its expensive news division. Maybe that’s the way it should be, but it will be the end of journalism which meaningfully aspires to objectivity. It will be a weird day when there’s a national crisis and the only guys around to cover it are anderson cooper, keither olbermann and sean hannity.
May 9th, 2009 at 5:04 pm
Kolohe,
My research suggests that there are a few new UHF stations every year. The last new VHF station I could find was WMAK in Knoxville, which began broadcasting a digital-only over-the-air signal in 2004.
May 9th, 2009 at 5:10 pm
The issue is framed oddly. The spectrum is not an asset of the government to either give away for free or sell. What companies get are essentially government protected monopolies for use of that particular part of the spectrum. So under what circumstances and under what terms should a government grant a private enterprise a monopoly? If it is all about maximizing revenue lets expand the government grant of monopolies into other areas. Where the monopolies are more “natural” typically the monopoly is granted by subject to a good deal of regulation so the the beneficiary of the monopoly does not use their power to the detriment of the public interest. Insisting on broadcast of basic civic information seems a bare minimum.
May 9th, 2009 at 5:21 pm
I think they should go with soccer-style advertising. When the US hosted the World Cup a few years back, they really didn’t have a good way of advertising during the two 45 minute continuous-play games. But now the fields are lined with constantly changing advertising billboards. Plus the player uniforms have sponsor names. The Seattle Sounders are sponsored by X-Box.
So what we need is for Obama to call on journalists and, in addition to the name and organization of the reporter, he could say “this questioned brought to you by …”, or maybe the reporter could add that detail.
Another idea is that the networks could take a loss and report it. Of course the loss would only be the profit expected from the scheduled program.
May 9th, 2009 at 5:29 pm
Why the need to make it balanced?
Why not charge for spectrum AND make the public interest regulations even stronger. For example, children’s TV must be educational and not have non-stop junk food ads, no real estate scam infomercials at night.
It is still the case that 1/3 or so of households only have broadcast TV.
May 9th, 2009 at 5:49 pm
Hmmm…one also wonders about the benefits of giving up the spectrum viz-a-viz the FCC and their decency standards. If I were a TV executive, I’d blanch at the prospect of paying millions of dollars out of pocket for someone else (like Bono or Janet Jackson) running afoul of their puritanical standards. And who knows? Maybe American Idol reruns will do better in syndication than the slightly edited versions of HBO shows like The Sopranos, Sex and the City, and perhaps in the future, Rome, Deadwood, Six Feet Under, Entourage, etc, etc.
Or maybe they won’t. After all, who wants to see American Idol reruns?
May 9th, 2009 at 5:52 pm
Free spectrum should be retained and leveraged into mandatory free airtime for Federal election candidates. Or, auction the spectrum, tax advertisements at a quarter per listener/ viewer, and spend it on public financing of elections.
May 9th, 2009 at 10:14 pm
As the Web site TVByTheNumbers pointed out, the Obama press conferences cost the networks – all of whom are in pretty bad shape this past season – some thirty million dollars in revenue.
And for what? For a PR event to boost the Prez’s “charisma” while not doing much of anything else.
And three times in three months whereas Clinton did, what, three or four in four years?
Sorry – Obama fail.
May 10th, 2009 at 12:26 am
The networks are obsolete.
Uh, no. As the postponed digital transition made clear, there’s still a substantial portion of the country that is OTA only, and even those with cable/sat want their local news, Wheel of Fortune and American fraking Idol. For all the fragmentation, the big numbers and the big money are with the network shows.
Appointment TV might be a thing of the past. The commissioning process might be screwed. The FCC content guidelines create a market for cable offshoots. But the networks are clearly not dead.
As for White House time, I’m ambivalent. Perhaps the commercial networks can make an agreement whereby PBS is the sole broadcaster in exchange for a hefty chunk of change?
May 10th, 2009 at 7:48 am
Why not broadcast it? The public frequently pays a lot of attention to Obama’s speeches, just make an agreement w/ the other networks, and instead of doing it live, record obamas speech and break it up with commercials.
May 10th, 2009 at 11:23 am
The cheapest stimulus for the american economy would be to give (not sell) the rights to what is now TV spectrum to high speed wireless internet providers, with the provision that they must provide 100 hours of free service per person per month (~3 hours a day). We exchange “free” TV for “free” high speed wireless internet, a massive upgrade.
The wireless internet companies would make money when your usage exceeds 100 hours (i believe that I would easily exceed that number more like 200 hours of personal usage for high speed wireless.)
May 11th, 2009 at 10:19 am
Roughly 1 in 4 US households doesn’t have cable or satellite TV. Broadcast TV is far from “obsolete”.
May 11th, 2009 at 11:57 am
cough. We give out spectrum monopolies because 60 years ago we didn’t have spread spectrum devices that would allow 50,000 TV channels to operate on one frequency. The reason the networks do news conferences is there is a tacit agreement going back to 1958 that if networks give free airtime for news conferences, political conventions and speeches the government will mostly leave the networks alone to run the most powerful media organizations in the country. Not really a bad deal.
Also remember the difference between networks and broadcasters — it is the broadcasters that actually send out the radio signals.