August 2008

In a city steeped in talk radio lore, two of Denver's most popular hosts have changed their focus. With the city abuzz over the Democratic National Convention coming to town this month, the co-hosts of the "Caplis & Silverman" show, both prominent lawyers, have all but stopped debating the regular lineup of salacious Colorado stories and instead taken to arguing over the presidential election. Politically charged talk radio is nothing new to Denver. This is the city where Alan Berg, a talk show host who was Jewish, was gunned down in his driveway in 1984 by white supremacists who wanted to silence him. His death became the inspiration for Eric Bogosian's play "Talk Radio" and Oliver Stone's movie of the same name. A memorial plaque hangs near the Clear Channel-Denver studio where Mr. Caplis, 51, and Mr. Silverman, 52, broadcast. Colorado has been a crucible of dynamic news over the years, and the resulting headlines — from the Columbine High School killings to the Kobe Bryant rape trial — have provided fodder for Mr. Caplis, a personal injury lawyer, and Mr. Silverman, a former chief deputy district attorney turned defense lawyer.

The NCAA is rejecting calls to alter its policy allowing beer and wine-cooler spots on college-sports telecasts, saying the policy is already conservative enough. The NCAA currently allows alcohol advertising for products that don't exceed 6% alcohol levels -- effectively limiting commercials for alcohol to beer and wine coolers. It also allows only 1 minute per hour of any telecast to be devoted to alcohol ads. The NCAA Division 1 executive committee announced its decision to reaffirm the current policy today after a meeting in Indianapolis. The Center for Science in the Public Interest says that according to TNS Media Intelligence, Anheuser-Busch and SABMiller spent nearly $30 million to advertise during the 2007 NCAA March Madness basketball championships. Further limits on alcohol ads could have threatened the size of the rights fee the NCAA generates from that and other telecasts, potentially impacting scholarship money and school revenues.

Asked by reporters what the impact on Verizon would be of the Federal Communications Commission's decision that Comcast violated its network-management guidelines, Tom Tauke, Verizon's executive vice president and a former congressman, said he's anxious to see the FCC's order. He did not rule out taking the decision to court if it was written in a way that could cause problems for his company. The FCC asserted jurisdiction, he said, adding, "No court has made a judgment on whether or not it has jurisdiction and we'll see if Comcast challenges it." Tauke outlined the triage for dealing with issues like Network Neutrality. His first choice is industry self-regulation. If you avoid the problem, he said, you obviate the need to address it with regulation or legislation. His second choice is the sort of case-by-case approach the FCC has adopted, although there remain those questions about the FCC's authority, since its guidelines are not rules. Those approaches are sufficient without Congress stepping in to impose network neutrality laws, he suggested, adding, "The FCC's action in this case shows it intends to uphold the principles and we believe, therefore, that there isn't a need for further legislation."

The American Civil Liberties Union -- joined by the Directors Guild of America, the American Federation of Television and Radio Artists and several others -- told the Supreme Court the Federal Communications Commission has no business regulating any speech short of outright obscenity. ACLU et al said the court must go beyond a narrow ruling on whether or not the FCC violated the Administrative Procedures Act by not giving broadcasters sufficient notice of its decision to start finding fleeting profanities indecent. Instead, they said, the court "cannot avoid the constitutional issues that are at the heart of this case." And if it does not avoid those issues, the petitioners said, "The entire indecency regime, in light of 30 years' experience, can no longer be justified by any constitutionally permissible construction of the statute." The groups continued, "Technological developments since Pacifica [the Supreme Court decision upholding the FCC's indecency authority] indicate that the rationale for censorship of nonobscene broadcasting has lost whatever persuasive force it once may have had. Given cable television, the Internet and other electronic media today, broadcasting is no longer 'uniquely pervasive' and 'uniquely accessible to children.'" They also argued that the discretion over what content is or isn't indecent inherent in the FCC's indecency-enforcement regime is "unconstitutional censorship." However, the groups stopped short of challenging the spectrum-scarcity rationale that underpins broader regulation of broadcasting.