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ELECTION ADVERTISING BOOST
[SOURCE: Broadcasting&Cable]
In perhaps the most significant midterm election since 1994, when Republicans swept Congress, a winner has already been declared: TV stations. Thanks to the possibility of the Democrats' capturing control of one or both houses, stations will pull in nearly $2 billion in political advertising this season. That far surpasses the previous, $1.25 billion record for a single election season. A war in Iraq, an energized electorate and tight races have led to more coverage by the Big Three broadcast networks. Has the media done a better job? Andrew Tyndall reports that the Big Three broadcast networks' coverage of this campaign has already broken the record set for midterm coverage 12 years ago. The 1994 campaign set a record with twice the coverage of a normal, incumbent-friendly midterm election, logging a three-network total of 216 minutes in the first 10 months of that year. In the same period leading up to Election Day 2006, the current campaign has clocked 240 min. of coverage. (Contrast those with the other midterm totals in the Tyndall Report database: 1990: 157 min.; 1998: 107 min.; 2002: 140 min.)
http://www.broadcastingcable.com/article/CA6388359.html?display=Feature

'FREE' TV, BUT AT WHAT PRICE?
[SOURCE: Multichannel News, AUTHOR: Tom Steinert-Threlkeld]
[Commentary] Since broadcasters provide the highest-quality programming to cable systems, shouldn't they be compensated? How much should consumers pay for "free" TV channels? It’s time to blow up the Cable Television Consumer Protection and Competition Act of 1992. You can't say, 'you have to negotiate payments with the broadcasters,and not let a cable operator put their programming to the ultimate test: Will consumers pay, one by one, for your programming? Or for a local-TV-only tier? Give customers the choice. Don't force viewers to buy the broadcast channels, as part of basic service. To provide that choice, cable operators have to have the right — like satellite competitors do — to place the stations in a local broadcast tier. Then, give the local stations payments based only on those viewers who directly choose to subscribe to them. While we’re at it, let’s blow up the broadcast-affiliate network system. It’s archaic and inefficient. Why are we allowing the same amount of a scarce resource (spectrum) be used to serve 15% of the American population as we did 50 years ago for 100%? Or, more, if you count the spectrum being used in the transition to digital broadcasting? Time to kill all broadcast towers. There’s ample capacity for the once broadly cast programmers to reach all U.S. households through satellite, cable and phone line. Put the spectrum — which J.H. Snider, research director at the New America Foundation, estimates to be worth $100 billion — to better use for the kinds of things over-the-air frequencies really should be used for: Defense, emergencies and, in entertainment, filling iPods, cellphones and portable media players. The broadcast affiliates will groan. But cable channels can be just as valid local programming producers and distributors. Make them your affiliates. If broadcasters (or the FCC) won't let consumers vote directly with their dollars, then don't allow any payments to broadcasters at all. If you want to deliver your programming free of charge to some portion of the population, then deliver it free of charge to all the population. Unless you make payments a clear choice for consumers.
http://www.multichannel.com/article/CA6388427.html?display=Opinion

THE MIXED MESSAGE TO KIDS
[SOURCE: Broadcasting&Cable, AUTHOR: Kevin Downey]
Balancing responsible, educational topics with advertising for products that many educators or nutritionists believe aren't good for kids is a topic just about as old as television itself. The first critics of children's TV used to howl about kid-show hosts who cajoled tykes to get their parent to buy them some sugary product. It's an even bigger issue today. What's the best way to strike a healthy balance between how TV educates and markets to its most impressionable demographic? Is television doing enough to police itself, or should more be done? The answer depends upon whom you ask. Family-friendly networks continue to pump out a steady stream of politically correct content, while launching a slew of education- and health-related outreach initiatives. And yet obesity continues to skyrocket among America's youth. The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) report that, since 1980, the obesity rate has tripled among adolescents and doubled among younger kids. In May, the FTC and HHS released recommendations for reworking marketing campaigns geared to kids. “Food companies, including food processors, supermarkets, and fast-food restaurants, and children's-entertainment companies are all very concerned about being blamed for the rising obesity rate in kids,” says Margo Wootan, nutrition policy director at the Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI). “And with good reason: A lot of their products and practices do contribute to kids' poor eating habits.”
http://www.broadcastingcable.com/article/CA6388365.html?display=Special+...

EARLY HOUR FOR WAR SERIES, SALTY LANGUAGE AND ALL
[SOURCE: New York Times, AUTHOR: Elizabeth Jensen]
As it begins a 10-month publicity push leading up to the September 2007 broadcast of Ken Burns’s new documentary series on World War II, PBS plans to announce this week that the programs will be shown at 8 p.m., even though a couple of episodes contain obscenities. Burns has maintained all along that his seven-part series of “The War” would be shown at 8 p.m., particularly because he wants it to be seen by young people who did not live through the war and its aftermath. But some in public television expressed concern over the summer that even the minimal use of obscenities would cause stations to run afoul of the Federal Communications Commission’s tightened policies against indecency, unless the series was broadcast after 10 p.m., when the FCC’s “safe harbor” period for children ends. Some episodes are likely to include viewer discretion warnings because of grim war images. In an interview from his New Hampshire office, Mr. Burns said last week that there were three clear-cut uses of obscenity in the series’s 14½ hours, and that those words, which were used in voice-over, have in the past been granted exceptions by the FCC He called their use “so minor and so appropriate to the story.” Individual stations have the option of delaying the episodes until a later hour or just showing the nightly 10 p.m. rebroadcast that PBS will also schedule. Stations could conceivably also ask PBS and Mr. Burns to make available a version of the film that bleeps the offending words.
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/11/06/arts/television/06burn.html
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