Sponsor (Oct-Dec 1962)

WASHINGTON WEEK What's happening in U.S. Government that affects sponsors. 26 NOVEMBER 1962 / copyright iwh j agencies, stations The FTC, which has been rather quiet on the radio-tv front, has now announced that all of its "monitors" will be hard at work on Christmas advertising for toys. All media will be involved, but major push will be on tv. Toy makers are to be required to submit all advertising, sworn statements about ad policy, and samples of the toys advertised. Other than that, the FTC monitoring unit will be reactivated (though FTC might insist that the unit has never been out of action, it has never been effective as originally threatened) with instructions to waste not a second in reporting questionable ad claims for toys. This has all the appearance of being a special Christmas push in an area which the FTC views with unusual alarm, rather than signalling a return to the crusading spirit of the recent past. FCC chairman Newton Minow finds the uproar over ABC's program on Richard Nixon made to order for one of his own private crusades. Minow has urged radio and tv to jump into controversial topics; has promised FCC backing in the event of attacks on broadcasters for what they do in the field. Minow went down the line in defense of Jim Hagerty and ABC TV, with a hard-hitting statement terming the program a secondary issue. He said if the program was unfair, ABC has offered time and facilities to correct it, and otherwise the merits are for the public to decide. Few communications attorneys have yet come forward to deny FCC legal power to hold programing hearings in local comunities, despite NAB offers to provide legal aid. The question of how a court test of FCC powers could be brought about is a complicated one. NAB could not institute a court case, nor could any station not immediately and directly affected. If a court case were already in the works, NAB could ask to participate as "amicus curiae," or in plain English, "friend of the court." If the FCC were to require a station to testify in its own behalf and the station refused, it would then get down to a subpoena situation which would automatically amount to a court test of FCC powers in this connection. The FCC might, however, put it on a basis of permitting stations to testify if they wished their own side to be heard, rather than compulsion. This would require, in order to set up a court case, that a station sue to prevent the hearings on grounds of potential injury to their interests. FCC counsel believe the Commission is well within its legal powers, on whatever grounds local programing hearings may be attacked. Thus far, aside from LeRoy Collins, informed industry people have neither agreed with nor disputed — publicly — this FCC postion. The Dodd subcommittee report, finished in staff form and waiting for action by Dodd and other subcommittee members, promises to be a pretty flat document compared to the sensational hearings. The subcommittee staff version is said to insist that programs of sex, horror, crime and violence can be an upsetting factor for the nation's young. This is not exactly unexpected, however, and will hardly spark anti-tv action. Action said to be recommended in the document, and subcommittee members it must be remembered have still not passed on them, involves bringing networks under FCC regulation and clipping option time wings to give competing program suppliers more access to the best station time. SPONSOR/26 November 1962 55