Broadcasting Telecasting (Oct-Dec 1963)

THE FIRST SESSION OF CONGRESS Ratings, commercials, editorials were main subjects of congressional concern, but no radio-TV laws were passed For a congressional session that wasn't expected to be very active in broadcasting matters, the first year of the 88th Congress became well involved with radio and television. The House Commerce Committee, whose members were probably more animated in this area than any other group on Capitol Hill, plunged into the year's biggest broadcasting issues and: ■ Conducted a spectacular investigation of broadcast ratings that forced audience research's most agonizing reappraisal since the television screen replaced radio in the living room (Broadcasting, Feb. 11, et seq). ■ Together with a fired-up National Association of Broadcasters, derailed an FCC effort to regulate commercials (Broadcasting, Nov. 11). ■ Leaped into one of the touchiest issues of all — whether and how broadcasters ought to editorialize and what the FCC's role should be in deciding what is fair. ■ Failed to prevent the FCC from instituting a schedule of license fees, which go into effect Wednesday (Jan. 1), although the matter now has been taken to court (Broadcasting, Dec. 16). Three tough problems Congress got into — commercials, editorials and license fees — were seen by some lawmakers as questions of power. In their view the FCC was trying to usurp authority belonging to Congress. This was most evident when the House Communications Subcommittee tried to prevent the FCC from regulating commercials and charging license fees without specific statutory authority. The issue, a perennial in Washington, was discussed at length but certainly not settled. There were other Capitol Hill developments related to broadcasting. Representative Emanuel Celler's (D-N. Y.) House Judiciary Committee investigated concentration of ownership in news media, but postponed its hearing after a few sessions because of priority given civil rights legislation (Broadcasting. The House Special Subcommittee on Investigations' probe of broadcast ratings held the legislative spotlight this spring as shown by the attention being given here to one of the investi 32 (THE MEDIA) gators, Rex Sparger (I) by Charles P. Howze Jr. (c), staff director, and Victor A. Sholis, vice president and director, WHAS-AM-TV Louisville, Ky., who testified on the failings of ratings. March 18). The Senate Communications Subcommittee approved two new FCC commissioners and a dozen incorporators of the Communications Satellite Corp. The unit also tried to get the incorporators to declare when they expected their government-chartered monopoly on space communications to begin paying for research leading to a working space satellite system for television and messages (Broadcasting, April 25). The 'Quiet Session' ■ Representative Oren Harris (D-Ark.), chairman of the House Commerce Committee, the unit with legislative responsibility in broadcasting, said last January he thought that the 87th Congress (1961-62) had taken care of major broadcasting matters and that things might be quieter in the 88th. The 87th enacted legislation that included the all-channel TV set law, authorized $32 million in federal grants to educational television and created the Communications Satellite Corp. (Broadcasting, Oct. 1, 1962). The record of the 88th is so far clear of any enactments on broadcasting, but as some congressmen have said, a Congress may be measured as well by what it does not do. Among things this Congress has not done: ■ It has not resolved questions on ratings, which it has been considering since 1957. But it has reopened discussion whether broadcast ratings services do what they say they do and has given broadcasters an opportunity to try to clean house — their own and the raters' (Broadcasting, May 27, 20). ■ It has not passed a susoens'on of Section 315, although slightly differing means have been approved by the House and Senate subject to some final agreement bv the House (Broadcasting, Dec. 16). ■ It has not given broadcasters guidelines on editorializing, but has said it is awaiting a primer promised by the FCC (Broadcasting, Dec. 16) ■ It has not passed a measure to prevent the FCC from regulating commercials, but a bill is heading toward the House floor. The FCC, meanwhile, is reconsidering its course (Broadcasting, Dec. 16). ■ It has not passed a bill setting uniform time standards although legislation has been approved by the Senate Commerce Committee (Broadcasting, Sept. 2). ■ It almost didn't give the FCC operating funds for the fiscal year that be BROADCASTING, December 30, 1963