roundtable: Groups Challenge Disney-ABC Merger

roundtable: Groups Challenge Disney/ABC Merger

Groups Challenge Disney/ABC Merger

langa@ucc.org
Thu, 28 Sep 95 16:45:12 

Date: Thu, 28 Sep 95 16:45:12 
From: langa@ucc.org
Message-Id: <9508288123.AA812331912@patienc.ucc.org>
To: roundtable@cni.org
Subject: Groups Challenge Disney/ABC Merger


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PUBLIC INTEREST COALITION CHALLENGES DISNEY/ABC MERGER;
GROUPS CALL FOR MORE EDUCATIONAL CHILDREN'S PROGRAMMING
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September 28, 1995

Beverly J. Chain
United Church of Christ
Office of Communication
(216) 736-2201 (Cleveland)

Jeffrey Chester
Center for Media Education
(202) 662-9535 (Washington, D.C.)

CLEVELAND--In a move aimed at securing better children's
television, a coalition of public interest groups is challenging
the Walt Disney Company's acquisition of the Capital Cities/ABC
television network.  Led by the Cleveland-based Office of
Communication of the United Church of Christ and the Washington,
D.C.-based Center for Media Education, the coalition today (Sept.
28) is filing a petition with the Federal Communications
Commission to deny the transfer.

The church agency and its partners argue that the Disney/ABC
deal has large public interest detriments and contradicts
policies designed to foster diversity of media ownership.  To
offset the substantial loss in diversification, the public
interest coalition is asking that Disney increase the amount of
educational children's programming ABC provides to its network
affiliates and owned stations.  The coalition is also urging
Disney to schedule these educational programs after 7 a.m. so
that children will have the opportunity to see them.
    
On mega-deals of this size, the parties must demonstrate to
the FCC that the transfer of control is in the public interest. 
In making its decision, the commission looks at past performance
and future promises.  The transfer request must undergo
especially close scrutiny when companies seek waivers of existing
ownership restrictions.  The detriment to diversification can be
overcome by a showing of extraordinary benefits to the public.

The groups are calling on Disney to demonstrate its commitment to
serve the public interest by providing more educational
programming for children on its new network.  "What we're asking
Disney to do in its new capacity as a broadcast network,"
explained Dr. Kathryn Montgomery, CME president, "is to
play a major leadership role in developing and airing more
programs which harness the enormous power of television as a
positive educational force in children?s lives."  Added Dr.
Beverly J. Chain, the UCC's director of communication, "Given
its prominence as a creator of children?s entertainment, Disney
has the resources and experience to develop a substantial amount
of core children's television programming which not only
entertains, but is specifically designed to educate and inform. 
The benefits to the public interest would be huge."

The Children's Television Act of 1990 requires that all
television stations, as a condition of license renewal, air
programming that is specifically designed to serve the
informational and educational needs of children.  But the
television industry response to the law has been weak, prompting
the Federal Communications Commission to institute a rulemaking
procedure to strengthen the implementation rules.  "By assuming
control of one of the most powerful television networks in this
country, Disney will be in an important leadership position to
improve television's inadequate record in serving the needs of
children," explained Chain.  "Unfortunately, on the one broadcast
TV station it owns, Disney's response to the Children's
Television Act has been disappointing."

According to the petition, Disney-owned KCAL (Channel 9) in
Los Angeles responded initially to the mandate of the Children's
Television Act by airing only a single half-hour educational
program for children at 5:30 a.m. on Saturday mornings for the
first year after the law took effect.  In the wake of
Congressional and FCC pressure on the industry, KCAL added some
new educational programs for children, but the petition noted
that most of them are scheduled in the early morning hours before
7 a.m., when only a tiny fraction of the child audience is
watching television.  "We know Disney can do better," said Chain,
adding that the company also distributes the children's science
series, Bill Nye, the Science Guy, on both public and commercial
television.

A commitment for more educational programming would be especially
important, observed Montgomery, in light of the TV violence study
recently released by UCLA, which revealed a disturbing trend
toward increasingly violent children's programs on the four major
networks.  "By making more educational programming available to
children during the hours when they watch, the networks can give
parents an alternative to the murder and mayhem that dominate the
airwaves."

Disney is asking the FCC to waive its rules governing multiple
ownership of media properties in the same market.  ABC owns two
radio stations and a daily newspaper in Fort Worth, Texas.  It
also owns radio stations in Detroit, Mich., and a paper in
Pontiac, Mich. (in the same signal area as the stations).  Disney
is asking for a permanent waiver of the FCC rule which forbids a
radio or TV broadcaster to own a newspaper in the same market and
provides that when an owner of broadcast and newspaper properties
in the same locality sells them, the properties must go to
different people.  "These waiver requests constitute a serious
detriment to the diversification policy embodied in the
regulations and thus to the public interest," the petition
states, arguing that Disney's showing for retaining this
proscribed cross-ownership is patently inadequate.  In Los
Angeles, the country's second largest TV market, the new company
would control two VHF TV stations for up to 18 months (or
possibly longer), which also is prohibited under current rules.

In the Disney-ABC petition, the Office of Communication and the
Center for Media Education are joined by the Alliance for Public
Technology; the Rev. Everett C. Parker, a longtime public
interest advocate who now teaches at Fordham University; and a
number of individuals.


[EDITORS AND PRODUCERS:  The text of a public statement by the
public interest coalition, responding to charges raised by FCC
Commissioner James Quello, Sen. Larry Pressler (R-S.D.) and Rep.
Jack Fields (R-Texas), follows.]

PUBLIC STATEMENT OF OFFICE OF COMMUNICATION, 
CENTER FOR MEDIA EDUCATION AND OTHERS

In the aftermath of the recent filings concerning the application
of Westinghouse Electric Corporation to take control of the CBS
stations and network, there has been a campaign to discredit the
efforts of the petitioners, Office of Communication of the United
Church of Christ (UCC) and several other groups and persons.

While we had hoped to let our pleading before the FCC speak for
itself, and are still reluctant to advance or bolster issues now
before the agency in a public relations campaign, we have decided
that we cannot leave the matter unanswered.

As members of the listening and viewing public, we have the right
under the First Amendment as well as under the Communications Act
to ask that broadcasters, licensed as public trustees of the
public airwaves, in fact serve the public interest.

The Commission has stated that it relies heavily upon the public
to bring to its attention public interest issues in connection
with renewal or transfer applications.  The UCC is proud of
having pioneered in this field and ended the discriminatory
programming practices against blacks that were so prevalent in
the 1960s.

The Petitioners are outraged to be accused of "extortion" or
"greenmail."  Neither UCC nor its associates gain any personal
benefit here.  Instead, the beneficiaries of Westinghouse's
commitment are the public, and most especially children who will
have a greater amount and variety of educational programming
available to them.  Further, the filing of the petition complied
with all of the requirements of the Communications Act and the
FCC's rules designed to prevent extortion and greenmail.  The
petition to deny is a long-recognized way for members of the
public to help the FCC ensure that licensees meet their public
interest responsibilities.

Despite much deregulation of broadcasting, two critical areas of
public interest regulation remain.  First, the FCC has ownership
rules designed to diversify the sources of information that come
to the American people.  Second, the Children's Television Act of
1990 (CTA), requires television broadcasters to serve the
educational and informational needs of children, including with
programming specifically designed to do so (called core
programming).

The Westinghouse application raised serious questions as to both
these facets.  We accordingly filed the petition to deny, and
urged that the detriments or deficiencies in these areas could be
overcome by the contribution that the network could make in
providing a substantial amount of core children's programming. 

This effort to promote the public interest in an area of such
importance to our nation--children and education--is precisely
what the Act calls for in permitting and encouraging public
participation.

We alone originated the notion of filing, had our attorneys draft
the filing, and filed the petition.  Contrary to unfounded
intimations, we are not acting at the behest of any government
official.

Nor are we seeking through these petitions to decide key issues
in the pending CTA rule making proceeding.  What we are seeking
here, plain and simple, is the substantial contribution by the
network to the provision of core children's programming, as an
offset to detriments in the applications.  The issues of what the
appropriate processing guideline as to core programming should be
for each television station, how core programming should be
defined, and so on, all must be determined in the rule making.

As Westinghouse points out in its Announcement of its commitment
to increase the quantity of educational children's programming to
be offered on the network, "It is right for the public to expect
a strong commitment to the public interest from companies that
are taking a larger role in the broadcasting industry."

Likewise, it is right for the public to demand that their
legislators stand up for the interests of children and the
public, not the special interests of the broadcasters.

We cannot stress too strongly that we do not regard three hours
of core programming a week (the figure in the Westinghouse
commitment) as adequate.  In prior comments in the rule making,
we have sought a processing guideline of one hour per day, for a
total of seven hours per week.  Nor do we regard the presentation
of core children's programs at times before 7 a.m. as adequate or
defensible.  We will press our positions on these and other
important issues in our October 16 comments.  We believe the
proper implementation of the Children's Television Act has been
delayed too long.

Finally, the suggestion that a commitment by a broadcaster to air
a specific quantity of educational children's programming somehow
violates broadcasters' First Amendment rights is patently false. 
The CTA requires broadcasters to air children's educational
programming.  The constitutionality of the CTA has never been
challenged in court by the broadcasters.  On the contrary,
whenever the issue of imposing a spectrum usage fee or auctioning
broadcast spectrum arises, the NAB, representing the
broadcasters, immediately proclaims that this would be unfair
because they must render public service, citing the CTA as the
prime example.  Yet whenever there is any effort to actually
implement this public service responsibility--to have real
accountability under the CTA--the NAB calls out its lobbyists to
wave the First Amendment flag and do everything they can to block
public service.  The needs of the nation's children should be
foremost in the minds of broadcasters, the public and
legislators.  It is to that end that we have worked for decades
for better programming for children.

[Any questions concerning this statement may be directed to
Beverly Chain, UCC (216) 736-2201; Jeffrey Chester, Center for
Media Education, (202) 662-9535; or Henry Geller, (202)
429-7360.]
                                                                  
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UCC OFFICE OF COMMUNICATION <holznagh@ucc.org>

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