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WASHINGTON WEEK
7 October 1963
^^ A four-foot stack of broadcaster protest against the FCC's proposed
commercials cutback piled up at the commission' s deadline for comment
last week, but no revolutionary new argument was raised.
NBC came perhaps closest to NAB president Collins' new approach, in
urging the FCC to realize that the crux of the commercials problem is not
one of time limits. Within a set time formula, wretched performance would
be possible, and there would have to be thousands of waivers for special
station revenue needs.
The real irk to the public lies in the interruptive placing of commercials, and poor quality in much of the message. NAB is now plotting a new tack to reach these problems in its commercial codes, said NBC.
All three networks, the NAB, multiple-owners , and individual broadcaster comments flatly denied FCC's right to regulate commercials— a question inevitably to be threshed out by the agency's parent House Commerce Committee.
All comment pointed to the obvious fact that advertising is essential not only as revenue, but to the peculiarities of the American economy. Advertising is essential to show-and-tell economy of new product and expansion. "You can't sell a new car if it's in a cave."
Most accuse FCC of illegal attempted rate fixing if it tries to set commercials limits on its own estimate of "reasonable profit."
^^^-^ ABC was perhaps the most emotional on the side-benefits of broadcast
advertising at grassroots level.
The deejay who advertises Goodyear products, for example, may warn mothers to bundle up the school tots for a day of sleet or rain; a sponsored swap-shop program enables mother to buy a crib for $5.
As to cold hard facts of station revenue, ABC asked how any formula could apply when station rates for 5500 broadcasters vary from 50 cents to 12,000 per spot, and revenue intake for hundreds varies by day and season and by local needs.
ABC had an answer to the fewer-but-higher priced commercials suggested by FCC Chairman Henry, among others. The net said, with the ring of experience, that if broadcasters could charge higher rates in today's media competition, they'd be charging them right now.
-^^^ Cohn and Marks , Washington communications attorneys, ask suspiciously: Why the proposal to adopt NAB codes at all? The public is just as irritated over interruptive commercials on a code station as on any other. Why, too, would FCC forego its own authority and adopt a code which it points out critically covers only 38% of radio and 70% of television — and so represents only partial view of the broadcasting industry?
Basic research is needed in: the public's real feelings, which range from complaint, to tolerance, to receptivity; in needs of local advertisers ; in the revenue needs of each individual station. So say the attorneys.
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