Pull The Plug On Broadcast Lobby
My son the software developer gave me a gadget for Christmas that plugs into my television set, with a wire that plugs into the telephone jack on the wall.
Are you with me so far? I don’t want to get too technical here. I press “power” on the remote (what did we do before remotes?) and the screen comes alive with a sign announcing it is dialing “WebTV,” to which I have just been subscribed at who knows what expense, and whammo! there I am on the Internet like a regular hacker. This enables me to call up the Times home page and click to read my own column on the big screen.
I do not venture a whole lot further (you could fall off the Earth) but the notion strikes me that the computer on which I am writing this essay has a new competitor. For about $400, we instant cybernerds can “surf the Net” without a $2,000 computer, provided we are willing to block the rest of our family from watching television or using the phone.
The lessons here are that (1) reading one’s column on the TV screen is not much of a thrill after the first time; (2) refusing to be swamped with E-mail can now be done out of principle and not ignorance; and (3) competing for the consumer’s dollar is a powerful force for economic good.
Surely this latest gizmo will be leapfrogged by another carrier, just as broadcast TV was leapfrogged by cable, which was leapfrogged by satellite, which is being leapfrogged by digital TV.
That latest - digital TV, which used to be dreamed of as high-definition TV - is the ultrasharp picture you get when the old, beat-up analog channel that broadcasters now use is split into a bunch of shiny new digital channels.
Now here’s where competition comes in. Fat-cat broadcasters, who got the daddy channel free from the public, want to keep all the valuable progeny of that gift. Those digital channels are worth tens of billions; indeed, when a non-broadcast part of the spectrum was put up for bids, the U.S. Treasury received more money than from any auction in the history of the world.
Why not put those coming digital channels up at public auction? When Bob Dole suggested that last year, the broadcasters’ lobby worked over every member of Congress to protect their giveaway; Trent Lott backed off, and Bill Clinton was not about to anger station owners who could affect his re-election.
But Wednesday, as the new Congress convened, Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., the Senate Commerce chairman, met quietly with Rep. John Kasich, R-Ohio, the House Budget chairman, to discuss the “Dirty Dozen” - 12 corporate welfare items that ought to be knocked out of next year’s budget to bring it toward balance.
Dirtiest of the dozen was the proposed digital spectrum giveaway. I spoke to both of these gutsy free-market Republicans afterward; Kasich said,
“I’m going to take a much closer look at the broadcast spectrum,” and McCain went further: “I’m all for an auction. Could turn up $30 to $35 billion. But we’re up against the power of the broadcasting lobby, and it’s the strongest I’ve seen in Washington.”
McCain is hopeful that the president will bite the bullet and include a broadcast spectrum auction in his budget proposal next month. The FCC’s Reed Hundt should lean on his friend Al Gore to push it as a way to preserve Head Start and Medicaid.
If Clinton now shows the gumption to go up against America’s most powerful lobby, McCain and Kasich might then find an ally in Sen. Pete Domenici-R-N.M., the Senate Budget chairman.
This is not an issue that TV network news will relish covering, nor is it likely to be reported on many local stations or in magazines and newspapers with broadcast interests, but perhaps some solons in both parties would be emboldened if given political cover from the president and a few outspoken, budget-hawkish GOP leaders.
Bring on the “Dirty Dozen,” McCain and Kasich. Turn on your bosses, TV reporters and editors. Together you can shame the president into taking a stand that upsets the media-politico complex.
Then we can read all about it in big type on our television screens.
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