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FCC Investigating Home Shopping Programming on Broadcast Channels

MarcB

MarcB

The FCC is investigating whether or not a broadcast station that shows home shopping progrmaming is serving the public's interest.

One group is arguing that if someone can't afford cable, they can't afford to shop at home. My response to that is, some people don't have cable because there is nothing worthwhile on it.

Anyway here's the whole story from Pittsburgh's WQEX-TV 16, the station owned by PBS affiliate WQED, but LMA'd to SHOPNBC.

http://www.wqed.org/wqex/index.shtml
 
Maybe they should investigate whether airing reality shows serves the public interest.

Absolutely ridiculous.

FCC PUT A SOCK IN IT AND GO JUMP IN A LAKE!
 
I don't care for HSN and other shopping networks but I feel they serve the community as well as anything else. Perhaps this particular station is coming under fire because it used to be PBS
 
Forgot to mention, I'd rather have the FCC investigate any broadcast channel that shows infomercials 24/7, since so may infomercials are scams - any of those money making seminars they have at the local Mariott Hotel/Holiday Inn Express, The Real Estate Thing done by that old geezer, The Kevin Trudeau thing, any of those other infomercials designed to look like a health oriented news-magazine show, etc.
 
MarcB said:
Forgot to mention, I'd rather have the FCC investigate any broadcast channel that shows infomercials 24/7, since so may infomercials are scams - any of those money making seminars they have at the local Mariott Hotel/Holiday Inn Express, The Real Estate Thing done by that old geezer, The Kevin Trudeau thing, any of those other infomercials designed to look like a health oriented news-magazine show, etc.
Click to expand...

Business scams like those would probably be under the jurisdiction of the Federal Trade Commission, not the FCC.

It's not the FCC's job to regulate programming except for strictly-defined criteria, such as obscenity, children's programming, political advertising, and a few others defined in Part 73. If a station wants to run home shopping or infomercials for legitimate businesses 24/7, more power to them. I have the equal right to not watch them, nor do I do business with them.
 
The cable company that launched the complaint is just upset that SHOP-NBC and an over the air station did an end run around them in terms of channel placement and if even SHOP-NBC should even be on their system(s). The home shopping channels are taking advantage of the must carry rule and teaming with struggling over the air outlets to get good lower-channel placement. MTV Networks is doing the same thing with MTV Tres. What was once a channel placed in the 300's or 400's on a lot a cable systems is now on the much more channel surfed 1-100 range.

It's all about location, location, location.
 
When digital TV takes over I wonder how many more shopping channels and infomercials will appear on the subchannels

Hmmm ???
 
Probably not as many as you think, as the FCC has ruled that "core" programming (children's e/i) must air on each DTV subchannel, based on the number of hours of free programming each supplies. A full-time subchannel must air three hours per week, just as the primary channel does.
 
MarcB said:
The FCC is investigating whether or not a broadcast station that shows home shopping progrmaming is serving the public's interest.

One group is arguing that if someone can't afford cable, they can't afford to shop at home. My response to that is, some people don't have cable because there is nothing worthwhile on it.

Anyway here's the whole story from Pittsburgh's WQEX-TV 16, the station owned by PBS affiliate WQED, but LMA'd to SHOPNBC.

http://www.wqed.org/wqex/index.shtml
Click to expand...

I HATE infomercials and shop at home channels, over the air, cable, or other wise. That siad, THIS IS REDICULOUS COMPLAINT.
The slippery slope is next we go after TV commeicals. Do those serve the public interest? Not really, but ITS A BUSINESS.

Doesn't the FCC have better things to do than waste their time on nonsense like this?
 
RadioFanBoy said:
The home shopping channels are taking advantage of the must carry rule and teaming with struggling over the air outlets to get good lower-channel placement. MTV Networks is doing the same thing with MTV Tres.
Click to expand...

Except that most of the stations carrying MTV Tr3s (and, to a similar extent, MTV2) are LPTVs, which are not qualified for must-carry. Only full-powered stations have must-carry protection.
 
Brian Donegan said:
Maybe they should investigate whether airing reality shows serves the public interest.
Click to expand...

Maybe they should. If TV stations licenses state that those stations should serve the public interest, then they should be held to that. Airing infomercials and home shopping 24/7 is an abuse of the broadcast license - IMO. The original intent of commercial television was not to sell cheap trinkets and snake oil all day and all night, all the while taking money out of the nation's more dull-witted viewers. It is all they do - no entertainment programming, news or local features. Just sales, sales, sales. How many small cities (particularly cities on the fringes of larger metro areas) have seen their only commercially licensed TV stations be turned into unwatchable clearinghouses for warehouses full of crap? That certainly is not in the public's best interest and, ultimately, the airwaves are publicly owned.

As for reality shows, I'd enjoy seeing a lot of those axed as well. Most of them do nothing more that rot the brain.

Yes, I know that this is one of my most leftist-sounding posts, but I feel strongly about this particular issue. Broadcast TV was better before the advent of both of the aforementioned forms of "programming."
 
On the subchannels that needed education programs big deal the requirment is so little, just throw an old rerun of "New Zoo Revue" on for 30 minutes a day and let the informercials or ShopNBC roll

:)
 
Well, I agree its likely ShopNBC's competitors that are upset about its channel placement and made the complaint (and for the record, the station has been airing a "shop at home" network since 2004. First, it was HSN's secondary (and now departed) sibling America's Store from 2004 to the first of this year but now the aforementioned ShopNBC).

But if its a community group, I can see their point: what was once a non-commercial "public" television station is now being used to showcase a fully commercial enterprise. This goes beyond the sponsor tags that air before and after PBS programming lately (which I understand the need for and don't mind sitting through to get to a program that is uninterrupted by commercial breaks during the actual program).

And it goes beyond the secondary PBS frequencies sold-off in the Albany and Buffalo, NY areas in the late 90s and early 2000s which returned to commercial status after years of operating as non-commercial stations (though the FCC never designated them as non-commercial licenses) or the secondary KERA-Dallas license sold to Daystar a couple years ago.

But being that WQEX is designated as a "non-commerical" license by the FCC, airing ShopNBC is nowhere near being "in the public interest." If it were a licensed commercial station, I wouldn't care and wouldn't watch. But the 24-7 shopping channel on the non-comm bothers me.
 
From WQEX's site:

We encouraged you to let us know how you benefit from our home shopping programming. Many of you responded, saying that this programming benefits the elderly, the home-bound, people with busy schedules and people who lack transportation.

(snip)

We again invite you to say how home shopping stations provide valuable services to you, members of your family, or to other members of the public.

Uhhh... yeah, sure.

::)
 
Yes, its all crap. The FCC lost control of whats on the air a long time ago to facilitate profits for media companies.

What actually is in the public interest? Kids shows,, watch some of them, you'll be scared. News,,, sorry, mostly opinion and eye candy,, and of course promos for network shows. Entertainment,,, maybe in the public interest if you want the public to be dimwitted. Shopping at home,, someone said it does benefit homebound people,, but thats about it.

So what would you put on instead of shopping? The problem is that there is so little quality programming and so many outlets, most of it is mind numbing pablum.

Just a thought,,, we shouldn't say "in the public interest", we should say "in the publicly traded companies interest". Thats what its all about now. Not programming but profit,, but I didn't have to tell you that.....
 
The whole E/I thing has brought about a glut of garbage kids shows which basically only seem to serve the producers and distributors of the shows and nobody else. The whole E/I thing needs to be eliminated. Leave kids programming to PBS and get the networks and local stations to underwrite some of the quality kids shows on PBS.

Infomercials and home shopping basically serves as a money maker and benefits nobody except those making money off them.

As for quality programming, there is a lot out there - oodles of back catalog stuff, and some really good shows from other English speaking lands that rarely get seen here. Some station could probably get some good foreign programming on the cheap, and that goes for news too.
 
Besides, the Disney kids block on ABC Saturday mornings doesn't qualify for E/I status. How they claim it does is BS!
 
KML-224 said:
Besides, the Disney kids block on ABC Saturday mornings doesn't qualify for E/I status. How they claim it does is BS!
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Neither does This Week in Baseball.
 
I'm no fan of home shopping channels; they're a waste of airtime to me. But what's in my interest isn't necessarily public interest. I hear the same arguments about religious programming: it's not in the public interest. No, it's just not in your interest. There is a share of the public that enjoys and benefits from just about any type of programming, be it religion, home shopping, reality, sports, or even PBS, which is also for the most part a waste of airtime and tax money to me.

Someone mentioned that the networks only program what profits them. Uh, yeah, but in a market economy, if nobody watches the stuff, it doesn't profit them. If people stopped buying from home shopping channels, those stations would eventually dry up. If reality TV didn't get such good ratings, it would disappear quickly. The off switch is still the most effective way of keeping junk programming off your TV.

Some claim that certain programs don't qualify for E/I status. Apparently they do, maybe not by your standard, but by the FCC's. Otherwise, we'd be seeing a lot more actions like those that the FCC took against Univision. Don't like what stations claim is E/I? Don't like the FCC's E/I standards? Don't like E/I requirements at all? Complain to the FCC.

Apparently, the FCC has affirmed WQEX's service to the community, because they renewed WQEX's license on 7/30.
 
Tim-In-Houston said:
But being that WQEX is designated as a "non-commerical" license by the FCC, airing ShopNBC is nowhere near being "in the public interest." If it were a licensed commercial station, I wouldn't care and wouldn't watch. But the 24-7 shopping channel on the non-comm bothers me.
Click to expand...

The FCC dereserved the channel in 2004. Channel 16 is a commercial allocation now.
 
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