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Congress
Mulls Religious-Broadcasting Bills
(April
13, 2000)
By Rod Perlmutter for Media
Central.
A
Congressional subcommittee is considering two bills that proponents
say will keep federal regulators from dictating religious speech
on radio and television.
But opponents say the bills will encourage religious broadcasters
to take over the licenses of public radio and TV stations, and
non-religious public broadcasting will disappear.
The House Telecommunications, Trade and Consumer Protection Subcommittee
heard testimony Thursday about two bills proposed by Republicans
aimed at rebuffing the Federal Communications Commission’s
attempt to impose guidelines on reserved noncommercial educational
(NCE) television channel licenses. The FCC proposed the guidelines
on Dec. 29 but withdrew them on Jan. 28 after protests by some
broadcasters and members of Congress.
The FCC’s decision to withdraw the guidelines angered groups
that felt the FCC was, as one FCC commissioner said, an example
of the agency “capitulating to an organized campaign of distortion
and demagoguery” by Republicans and religious broadcasters.
These groups said the guidelines would make sure that the owners
of NCE licenses were groups that tried to represent the cultural
and education needs of the community, and not just wealthy religious
broadcasters looking for a cheap way to grab a chunk of the airwaves.
The bills are H.R. 3525, the Religious Broadcasting Freedom Act,
and H.R. 4201, Noncommercial Broadcasting Freedom of Expression
Act. The subcommittee heard testimony but did not consider amendments
on the bill or schedule it for mark-up, said Pete Sheffield, a
spokesman for the House Commerce Committee.
What
triggered the FCC guidelines
On Dec. 29, the FCC released a decision approving the application
for assignment of license of WQEX (TV) Channel 16, Pittsburgh,
Pa., from WQED Pittsburgh to Cornerstone TeleVision, Inc., and
the application for assignment of license of WPCB-TV, Channel
40, Greensburg, Pa., from Cornerstone to Paxson Pittsburgh License,
Inc. In short, Cornerstone sought and was granted authority to
move from Channel 40 to Channel 16, and to sell Channel 40 to
Paxson.
Channel 16 is one of two public television stations in the Pittsburgh
area, said Jerry Starr, executive director of Citizens for Independent
Public Broadcasting and co-chairman of the Save Pittsburgh Public
TV Campaign.
Cornerstone had been broadcasting religious programming on its
commercial channel in Pittsburgh since 1978. Because of its financial
problems, the public TV operator considered the swap deal. Once
Channel 40 was sold, the proceeds of the sale were to be split
between the public TV operator and Cornerstone.
The deal would have meant that a religious broadcaster would have
had the rights to a NCE license. That's unusual, Starr said, since
the vast majority of religious broadcasters hold commercial licenses.
In granting the application the FCC denied the petitions of those
who opposed the deal, including the Save Pittsburgh Public TV
Campaign, based on the religious nature of some of Cornerstone's
programming.
The FCC said that since 1952, the commission has reserved a limited
number of television channels for educational broadcasters, including
Channel 16 in Pittsburgh. Applicants seeking to use NCE-reserved
television channels have always been required to demonstrate that
their programming will be "primarily educational" in
nature and thus serve the educational purpose for which the channel
was reserved.
In a small number of cases, including the Cornerstone application,
religious broadcasters have requested that they be certified as
NCE TV broadcasters and thereby they become subject to the standards
of an NCE TV station.
The commission said that in all license transactions, the FCC
generally defers to the program judgments and decisions of the
licensees, and does not review programming definitional issues
on a factual basis unless it first determines that a substantial
and material question of fact has arisen that the licensee's judgments
are arbitrary and unreasonable.
In granting Cornerstone's application, the FCC said, it also sought
to clarify standards that apply to any broadcaster, religious
or otherwise, seeking commission certification as an educational
television broadcaster eligible for a reserved NCE channel. The
order in the case included two paragraphs of "Additional
Guidance" to be used in the future to help resolve any factual
issue raised about when programming is "primarily educational."
"To
comply with the requirement that a NCETV station 'be used primarily
to serve the educational needs of the community,' we now clarify
that this requirement is two-fold," the FCC stated.
"We
do not believe that the discussion of religious matters during
a program that has as its primary purpose service to the educational,
instructional or cultural needs of the broader community disqualifies
the program from being a "general educational" program,"
the FCC stated. On the other hand, the commission stated, not
all programming qualifies as educational.
"For
example, programming primarily devoted to religious exhortation,
proselytizing or statements of personally held religious views
and beliefs generally would not qualify as 'general educational'
programming," the FCC stated, and, in a footnote, gave another
example: "Church services generally will not qualify as 'general
educational' programming under our rules. However, a church service
that is part of an historic event, such as the funeral of a national
leader, would qualify if its primary purpose is serving the educational,
instructional or cultural needs of the entire community."
The FCC approved the decision, including the guidelines, by a
3-2 vote.
On Jan. 10, Lowell "Bud" Paxson, chairman of Paxson
Communications, blasted the guidelines as "horrendous"
and said they would have far-reaching and damaging consequences.
The rules:
Rep.
Michael Oxley (R-Ohio) sent his complaints to FCC Chairman Kennard
in January, who responded that the commission was not out to suppress
religious expression nor was it trying to establish new rules.
Instead, he wrote, the commission was trying to "clarify
long standing FCC policy applicable to any broadcaster seeking
to use an NCE-reserved channel."
On Jan. 24, Oxley introduced H.R. 3525, the Religious Broadcasting
Freedom Act, which quickly attracted more than 120 co-sponsors.
The bill stated the FCC “shall not establish, expand, or
otherwise modify requirements relating to the service obligations
of noncommercial educational television stations except by means
of agency rulemaking.” It also voided the FCC’s NCE
guidelines that it had established in the Paxson case.
‘Worse
than the first’
Four days later, the FCC withdrew the guidelines. But House Republicans
were not finished. On April 6, Rep. Chip Pickering (R-Miss.),
proposed H.R. 4201, the “Noncommercial Broadcasting Freedom
of Expression Act.”
The bill states that any nonprofit organization is eligible to
hold a NCE license “if the station is used primarily to broadcast
material that the organization or entity determines serves an
educational, instructional, or cultural purpose…unless that
determination is arbitrary or unreasonable.”
It also bans the FCC, when considering applicants for NCE licenses,
from:
“Both
bills are bad, but Pickering’s bill is even worse than the
first one,” Starr said. “What is left out of the bill
is anything to allow the community or the FCC to make a judgment
whether a station is serving the needs of the community. It gives
all the discretion to the broadcasters.”
Starr believes that while religious broadcasters should have the
right to broadcast – that’s what commercial licenses
are for -- they do not have the right to take over the small segment
of the airwaves reserved for public broadcasting. The religious
broadcasters are not interested in providing the type of cultural
and educational programming that are commonly found on PBS or
NPR. That’s because some religious broadcasters define “educational”
programs in a way most communities would not only not recognize,
but might find repugnant, he said.
“The
program which they characterize as ‘sincere people of faith
sharing their beliefs with others’ frequently consists of
programs that are political in nature, not religious, and, sometimes,
attacking people of other religions,” Starr said.
The Pittsburgh WQEX case is an omen of things to come in the broadcast
industry, Starr said. Non-religious stations usually scrap by
on contributions from corporations and individuals, but federal
financial support for public broadcasting is always under attack
in Congress. WQEX is one of many stations that may be forced out
of business. This legislation suggested that if they do, religious
broadcasters will swoop down to grab the licenses, he said.
“If
this bill passes,” Starr said, “it’s open season
on NCE licenses.”
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