House Sets Emergency Cpb Hearing

Television Digest with Consumer Electronics, July 19, 1999

House Telecom Subcommittee tomorrow (Tues.) will hold first of at least 2 hearings on CPB authorization in wake of serious disputes between panel members over funding levels that were given higher profile by revelations that PBS stations traded membership lists with Democratic National Committee (DNC).

CPB Pres. Robert Coonrod will testify at session, and representatives of cable systems that provide programming similar to that offered by PBS also are expected. Further hearings will feature representatives of individual PBS stations. New hearings are being rapidly thrown together after House Telecom Subcommittee Chmn. Tauzin (R-La.) was forced to cancel July 20 markup on CPB funds. Republican members and staff emphasized that serious fight was brewing over figures Tauzin had proposed in draft legislation.

There are 2 views on situation. On one hand, Tauzin said repeatedly that he didn't know of any subcommittee members' objections to funds because no one had come to him with objections: "Where were they?" On other hand, Republican members and staff said that objections certainly were raised after hearing. Sources said that even before controversy over lists, there was "zero support" for figures that were higher than those proposed by Administration for public broadcasting's conversion to digital TV. One source said: "How can a Republican-majority committee come up with increases that are far above what the Administration asked for?" In addition, Rep. Cox (R-Cal.) has questioned need for any support for CPB's online activities. He also believes that even low-income TV watchers have enough money to subscribe to cable channels that substantially duplicate mission of PBS. Some critics of PBS have been clamoring for months for hearing and are dismayed at swift attention being given now to issue.

It was on top of that controversy that subcommittee began to learn from story published in May by Boston Globe that WGBH-TV had traded its list with DNC. Station at first said it was one-time incident, later said practice has been going on for 5 years. There's still question how many other public broadcasting stations have swapped or sold their membership lists to political organizations. WETA Washington, WNET N.Y.C., and KQED San Francisco acknowledged that they had longstanding policy of trading lists with all nonprofits, including political ones. KQED spokesman told us that in last week, "after learning about the WGBH incident, we have tightened our practices to exclude nonprofit advocacy and political organizations."

Result will be new legislation that certainly will include funding level lower than ones Tauzin had sought. There also probably will new rules against type of political list-trading in which stations engaged. Tauzin was drafting letter to CPB "requesting whether they have any information on similar activities elsewhere around the country," spokesman Ken Johnson told us: "There will be no reauthorization bill passed by the House until we have some straight answers." He said industry must "assure Congress that [practice] has not happened elsewhere, nor will it happen anywhere again." PTV stations responding to our informal survey July 15 generally reported policies against swapping lists with political organizations -- although WGBH has made same claim.

DNC spokeswoman said it "wouldn't surprise me" if other PTV stations have done same thing. Johnson said Tauzin's office has received reports of other stations' dealing with political parties, but he said all such allegations remain unsubstantiated. Every station we talked with reported policy against swapping lists with political organizations. "I think we have an anomaly up there in Boston," KCPT Kansas City spokeswoman said. Said KTCA-TV St. Paul-Minneapolis spokeswoman of her station's similar stance: "We have never, ever deviated from that policy." She said station did once purchase list from DNC, but never would allow sale other way. Although some stations had very stringent nontrading policies -- WVIZ-TV Cleveland "does not trade its list with anyone," Pres. Jerrold Wareham told us -- most stations we talked with do trade with other (nonpolitical) nonprofits, particularly cultural institutions, on name-for-name basis, but not for money. "We do not sell our lists for any purposes," said WCET Cincinnati Station Mgr. Scott Elliot, who called WGBH's situation "unfortunate... In our drive to find every single dollar we can, sometimes our zeal overcomes our better judgment." PBS doesn't have members as stations do, but it does collect lists for such enterprises as home video marketing, spokesman told us. He said those lists are "never" shared.