The Public Interest Obligations Initiative: Lost in the Digital Television Shuffle

Abstract

Amidst all the discussion of digital television issues, such as transition deadlines, mandatory tuners, and must-carry provisions, one very important issue has fallen off of policymakers' radar screens. That is the issue of the public interest obligations of digital broadcasters. Back in 1997, this issue was front and center in the digital television policy arena. Unfortunately, today the public interest obligations issue has been forced aside by changes in the political climate and by a variety of persistent technical and economic complications. However, given the time, resources, and effort being devoted to completing the digital television transition, policymakers must regain their focus on the public interest obligations issue if the video service is to make a meaningful contribution to the media system and to American political and cultural life. In March 1997, the Clinton Administration established the Advisory Committee on the Public Interest Obligations of Digital Television Broadcasters. The Committee--a mix of industry executives, academics, and public interest advocates--was charged with the task of determining how the principles of public trusteeship that have governed broadcast television for more than 70 years should be applied in the new television environment (Advisory Committee on the Public Interest Obligations of Digital Television Broadcasters, 1998, p. 136). The Committee met eight times over the next 15 months in different venues around the country to solicit input from the general public and from outside experts, and ultimately produced a set of recommendations that was submitted to the White House. These recommendations addressed a variety of issues, such as disability access, the promotion of diversity, disaster warnings, funding for public broadcasting, and the establishment of a voluntary code of conduct for broadcasters. The Committee's report did not, for the most part, move very far beyond the regulatory framework and requirements that have been in place for analog broadcasters, and generally avoided providing specific details in regards to its recommendations. The report, however, did include the very controversial recommendation that digital broadcasters be required to provide five minutes of free air time to political candidates each night during the 30 days before an election. With its combination of well-established and radical new public interest recommendations, the Advisory Committee's report represented an important starting point for a meaningful examination and reassessment of how broadcast television could better contribute to American political and cultural life. The Committee's report prompted an FCC Notice of Inquiry (NOI) on digital broadcasters' public interest obligations (Federal Communications Commission, 1999). Then-FCC Chairman William Kennard originally had planned to issue a Notice of Proposed Rule Making (NPRM) that included the Advisory Committee's free air time proposal. Congress reacted negatively to the free air time proposal, going so far as to threaten to cut the FCC's budget. Congress' reaction led Chairman Kennard to introduce a more tentative Notice of Inquiry instead of the NPRM. In the NOI, the Commission sought comment on a wide variety of issues, including the free air time proposal and most of the Advisory Committee's other proposals as well, but did not propose specific rules. This NOI led to an NPRM that focused specifically on children's television obligations for digital broadcasters (Federal Communications Commission, 2000). The FCC has issued no further decisions or rules on the variety of public interest obligation issues raised in the NOI and the children's television NPRM. The last official word on the public interest obligations issue came from then-Chairman Kennard's (2001) Report to Congress on the Public Interest Obligations of Television Broadcasters as they Transition to Digital Television. In this report, Kennard presented a variety of recommendations, including a minimum public affairs programming requirement (Napoli, 2001b), the reinstitution of community ascertainment requirements, and a five-minute free air time requirement for political candidates. …