FCC Says No to Commercials

[TheBigA]

This subject comes up in this forum a lot, about the possibility of the FCC permitting commercial stations to run advertising. A case came before the FCC recently, and they said they don't have the power to permit it, but wouldn't even if they did.

Here's the article from RBR:

http://www.rbr.com/radio/fcc-turns-down-non-profit-request-to-sell-ads.html

 

[uncamark]

This subject comes up in this forum a lot, about the possibility of the FCC permitting commercial stations to run advertising. A case came before the FCC recently, and they said they don't have the power to permit it, but wouldn't even if they did.

Here's the article from RBR:

http://www.rbr.com/radio/fcc-turns-down-non-profit-request-to-sell-ads.html

Community stations in Canada, the UK and Australia are allowed to run advertising, usually in more limited amounts than commercial outlets. Outside of the FCC, too many community stations in this country are so-anti-capitalist that they would never allow full-fledged advertising--also, most of these stations are music-driven and it's the music audience on non-coms who complain about underwriting announcements more than the news-talk audience.

 

[Bongwater]

This subject comes up in this forum a lot, about the possibility of the FCC permitting commercial stations to run advertising. A case came before the FCC recently, and they said they don't have the power to permit it, but wouldn't even if they did.

Here's the article from RBR:

http://www.rbr.com/radio/fcc-turns-down-non-profit-request-to-sell-ads.html

Community stations in Canada, the UK and Australia are allowed to run advertising, usually in more limited amounts than commercial outlets. Outside of the FCC, too many community stations in this country are so-anti-capitalist that they would never allow full-fledged advertising--also, most of these stations are music-driven and it's the music audience on non-coms who complain about underwriting announcements more than the news-talk audience.

Not quite.

The initial plans for LPFM in 2000 allowed local advertising. But the the radio conglomerates and the NAB (who didn't like LPFM anyway) had set their faces against it. So LPFM was FORCED into non-com status in the final draft.

 

[vchimpanzee]

They can say they're not commercials, but when it walks like a duck ...

 

[aaronread]

They can say they're not commercials, but when it walks like a duck ...

With public TV, I think you have a point. I've seen the exact same car commercials on FX as on PBS. Still, look at the furor that's erupted over PBS adding breakaways (for underwriting spots) in the middle of some of their shows. Viewers are outraged over it; they're used to (gasp) literally being no interruptions during a show. What a concept!

But with non-commercial radio? To paraphrase Pulp Fiction: "It ain't the same ballpark. It ain't the same league, it ain't even the same f**king sport!!!" I dare ANYONE to listen to just ONE hour of any commercial station during morning drive and then any non-commercial (even NPR affiliate) stations during the same hour. It's night and day; you'll hear about 20 to 25 minutes of 60-second long IN YOUR FACE screaming commercials vs maybe 3 to 5 minutes, tops, of 15 to 30-second long live reads.

If you're hearing something other than that...then that non-commercial station is probably breaking the rules! Granted, some do that. But you can't take that and say that non-comm radio is the same as commercial radio.

 

[raccoonradio]

Should the word "donorship" apply here rather than commercial? I know from my many years in college
radio that we can take donations and acknowledge them with announcements and we can't give prices or use superlatives. "The restaurant offers chicken, ribs, and soup" instead of "For the best chicken you'll
ever find..."

I don't watch PBS too often but there are little donorship announcements that may look similar to
commercials--some blurb for Kellogg's might air during Clifford the Big Red Dog, and they'll word it a
certain way: "Kellogg's, who believes in healthy kids, is proud to support..." It doesn't say frosted
flakes are grrrrrrrrrrrreat.

As someone who doesn't believe in public funding for NPR/PBS, I would like to see them be allowed
to run ads (they could still air a lot fewer ads than reg. commercial stations would) and survive on
listener donations, corporate giving, and foundations. For example, a local NPR station's blues show
could run an ad (if allowed) for a blues nightclub.

"Car Talk will be right back after this message from NAPA Auto Parts"

I was slightly surprised to hear an aircheck of a blues show on a Toronto station which ran ads
(Air Canada, etc.); a station I thought would be non-commercial. I guess they have some stations
who can run SOME commercials (limit per hour?)

 

[uncamark]

I was slightly surprised to hear an aircheck of a blues show on a Toronto station which ran ads
(Air Canada, etc.); a station I thought would be non-commercial. I guess they have some stations
who can run SOME commercials (limit per hour?)

Community stations in Canada (and the UK and Australia) are allowed to run advertising, although I believe with a much smaller load than private stations. Some stations choose not to do so (your most hardcore lefty Pacificistas and a classical station in Melbourne, Aus., is totally commercial-free), but the option is there.

And the government-supported CBC, like many government-supported broadcasters, does air advertising on its TV network and stations (while expected to offer a certain amount of mass appeal programming that U.S. public broadcasting is not expected to offer--but when the CBC picked up "Wheel of Fortune" and "Jeopardy!" a few years ago, the screams from the highbrows [who are already pissed that the Radio 2 network has cut back on classical music and has become a AAA for most of the day] were palpable [and "Jeopardy!" counts as Canadian content, thanks to Alex Trebek retaining his Canadian citizenship]).

 

[TheBigA]

As someone who doesn't believe in public funding for NPR/PBS, I would like to see them be allowed
to run ads

The FCC was pretty clear in it's decision. They will not allow anything that seems like a commercial on non-commercial stations, and will continue to fine stations that they feel have crossed the line into commercialization.

It will take an act of Congress to change the system, and right now Congress can't get together to do the basic things. So I don't see this changing any time soon.

 

[aaronread]

Should the word "donorship" apply here rather than commercial? I know from my many years in college
radio that we can take donations and acknowledge them with announcements and we can't give prices or use superlatives. "The restaurant offers chicken, ribs, and soup" instead of "For the best chicken you'll
ever find..."

"Donorship" is just another word that people who work in the industry have come up with to describe the (admittedly confusing) world of underwriting.

www.fcc.gov/mb/audio/nature.html

If we're going to use "official" FCC terminology, there's advertising (commercial) and then there's underwriting (non-commercial) and that's it. Non-commercial licenses may only air underwriting, which has the following content restrictions:

1. May not be longer than 30 seconds.
2. Must not contain any call to action.
3. Must not contain any inducement to buy/sell/lease. (i.e. limited-time sale info)
4. Must not contain any mention of price in any form. (includes percentages, also "free" which is a price)
5. Must not be promotional.

The first one is actually that the FCC doesn't see how any underwriting spot more than 30 seconds couldn't be promotional in nature, and thus prohibited.

The last one is the tricky one. NPR and NPR stations, for example, are very, very good about adhering to 2, 3 and 4. But 5 is so vague it's hard to really know for sure, and NPR tends to push the envelope quite a bit. It's easy to make arguments either way with most language in underwriting spots. Something that is technically factual can also be viewed as promotional, too. For example, a business that says in a spot that it's been in business for 20 years is considered inherently promotional because it's implying that it is better than another, similar, business that hasn't been around as long.

To make it even more vague, I quote from the above URL: "In March 1984, we relaxed our noncommercial policy to allow public broadcasters to expand or "enhance" the scope of donor and underwriter acknowledgements to include (1) logograms or slogans which identify and do not promote, (2) location information, (3) value neutral descriptions of a product line or service, and (4) brand and trade names and product or service listings."

Personally I'm fond of the test that my colleague at SUNY Brockport's station once described to me: when in doubt, take the language in the spot and substitute antonyms for everything you can. If the spot suddenly makes no sense at all, that means the language was promotional and you need to re-work it. Granted, a LOT of stations' underwriting routinely fails this test and the FCC doesn't seem to mind much. But YMMV.

 

[vchimpanzee]

They can say they're not commercials, but when it walks like a duck ...

If you're hearing something other than that...then that non-commercial station is probably breaking the rules! Granted, some do that. But you can't take that and say that non-comm radio is the same as commercial radio.

Looking at what has been said, I guess no rules are being broken. It's probably not as obvious as what's going on with PBS stations. But those "ads", despite being more sophisticated than what's on commercial TV, sure do look like commercials.