[opendtv] News: McCain Wants to Reduce License Term to Three Years
- From: Craig Birkmaier <craig@xxxxxxxxx>
- To: OpenDTV Mail List <opendtv@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Wed, 16 Feb 2005 08:22:00 -0500
Via ShopTalk:
McCain Wants to Reduce License Term to Three Years
By Doug Halonen
<http://www.tvweek.com>http://www.tvweek.com
Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., unveiled legislation Tuesday to cut the
license terms of broadcasters from eight years to three, a measure
the lawmaker said is intended to let the public and Federal
Communications Commission keep closer tabs on the industry's public
interest programming.
Under the measure, broadcasters would also be required to cite on
station Web sites the programming they have aired to meet their
public interest obligations.
The legislation was announced in response to a study released Tuesday
by the Lear Center Local News Archive suggesting that local TV
newscasts gave short shrift to local political races in 2004.
According to the study, which analyzed Big 4 TV station newscasts in
11 markets between Oct. 4 and Nov. 1, 64 percent of the broadcasts
included at least one election story.
But according to the study, 55 percent of the broadcasts featured a
story about the presidential race, while only 8 percent looked at a
local race. "Eight times more coverage went to stories about
accidental injuries, and 12 times more coverage to sports and
weather, than to coverage of all local races combined," the report
said.
In a statement, the National Association of Broadcasters criticized
the study for failing to count the political coverage in morning,
midday and late-night programming.
"Americans get their news 24/7, yet Lear researchers only counted
political coverage between the hours of 5 p.m. and 11:30 p.m.," the
NAB said.
Said Sen. McCain, "I think citizens deserve more than they're getting
from their local newscasters."
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