Broadcasting Telecasting (Oct-Dec 1963)

will help to contribute to a better informed electorate than ever before. Congress will eventually repeal Section 315 altogether, he said, with exemptions for the 1966 election of congressional and governor campaigns. During an interview Thursday afternoon on wlac Nashville, Governor Collins said that the broadcasting industry is too sensitive to criticism that comes from controversial programing. Stations, he said, must be controversial or their programing becomes "bland and meaningless." The individual broadcaster, he said must realize that a high degree of professionalism is needed in the industry. Service to the public must come before profits and the public must be made to realize that improvement will come from the industry and not the government, the NAB president added. In a Thursday luncheon address devoted mainly to humor, author and broadcast personality Rufus Jarman said that broadcasting must develop a personality of its own. To be successful, he said, a station must inspire. The sixth NAB fall conference opens today (Nov. 18) at the Texas hotel in Fort Worth. From there the caravan goes to Denver for Thursday and Friday (Nov. 21-22) sessions at the Cosmopolitan hotel and winds up Nov. 25-26 at the Fairmont hotel in San Francisco. Supreme Court supports FCC action on KRLA The U. S. Supreme Court last week denied a petition for review by krla Pasadena, Calif., against an FCC decision refusing to renew its license. The FCC denied the license renewal on the grounds that owner Donald Cooke had not lived up to program proposals made when he bought the station in 1959; that the station had falsified program logs, and that it had engaged in fraudulent contests (Find Perry Allen, Golden Key). This decision was upheld by a federal court of appeals last July (Broadcasting, July 15). Moves in store to detour commission ROGERS'S AGENDA INCLUDES COMMERCIALS, LICENSE FEES, FAIRNESS The FCC's efforts to regulate commercials, set license fees and to make policy on what's fair in the treatment of controversial issues on radio and television are all related in the minds of the majority of the House Communications Subcommittee. Today (Nov. 14) they'll sit down at a closed-door meeting in Washington to work out means to thwart the FCC's moves in these areas. Representative Walter Rogers (DTex.), subcommittee chairman and author of bills aimed at blocking the FCC on commercials and license fees, said last week that the FCC is trying to take over Congress's legislative powers. The evidence is the commission's activity in these three areas of broadcasting, he said in an interview Thursday (Nov. 14). "The time has come for Congress to face this," he continued, "and I intend to see that we do just that." With two bills to deal with commercials and license fees already on its agenda, the subcommittee is also expected to turn to the question of fairness. Representative Rogers and other members have been trying to write a bill that would block the commission from, as the subcommittee majority sees it, requiring broadcasters to provide free time for spokesmen to answer paid controversial broadcasts. At The Very Least ■ There were predictions from the subcommittee that at the very least it would vote out Representative Rogers's bill on commercials and that the legislation would move through the full Commerce Committee without trouble and pass the House. The FCC, meanwhile, was preparing for oral arguments on its commercials proposal to be held Dec. 9. Just a week earlier the subcommittee took three days of testimony on HR 8361, which would prevent the FCC from making a rule on the length and frequency of commercials (Broadcasting, Nov. 11). Only the FCC and Representative John E. Moss (DCalif.), a subcommittee member, favored the FCC's proposal. Thirty broadcasters and four congressional witnesses united against the commission and for the Rogers bill. Representative J. Arthur Younger (RCalif.), senior Republican on the subcommittee, said Democrats and Republicans "think alike on this one" and he predicted passage by the subcommittee and full committee with very few dissenting votes and House approval as well. Representative Rogers has another bill (HR 6697) pending on the license fee question. Last week the FCC turned down his request that it suspend its plan to initiate a license fee schedule on Jan. 1, 1964. The commission agreed the week before that many "difficulties" would be encountered in delaying its plan, and it noted that considerable work already had been done in preparation for implementation (Broadcasting, Nov. 11). Representative Rogers said Thursday that the FCC's reply "came as no surprise to me." It is a "perfect example of the attitude of the commission that they are the legislative body with regard to the broadcasting industry and are willing ... to assume power that [they] were never intended" [to have], he said. Fee Hearing, Too ■ Since the FCC won't suspend its action, Representative Rogers said, he will try to schedule a hearing on his license fee bill as soon as he can. The legislation would prohibit the FCC from setting fees without specific authority from Congress. "I feel personally that this is a perfect example of government agencies not directly answerable to the electorate of this country attempting to take over the legislative powers . . . not given to them by the Congress," Representative Rogers said. On the question of the FCC's fairness policy, he said he thought "that problem is coming around." When he first set hearings on editorializing in an effort to provide guidelines on editorials, the congressman said, he was misunderstood and broadcasters thought he was trying to ban broadcast editorials. Now they can see, he continued, that it was the FCC that was trying to gain control of programing through its restrictive policy on editorializing. Although subcommittee members are still experimenting with language for a bill to stop the FCC's moves on fairness, Representative Rogers made it clear that the group wants to prevent the commission from requiring broadcasters to offer free time to spokesmen who oppose ideas expressed on paid broadcasts but claim they cannot pay for their own air time. Silence better than sale for bankrupts: Bartley When stations in competitive markets go bankrupt, "the general structure of broadcasting would be improved by the stations going off the air" instead of being sold. This is the view FCC Commissioner Robert T. Bartley expressed last week before the second annual Station Representatives Association luncheon for agency and station personnel in the Cleveland area. Mr. Bartley preceded his position on bankrupt stations by 70 (THE MEDIA) BROADCASTING, November 18, 1963