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Watchdog tries to open California political airwaves

The Alliance for Better Campaigns (AFBC) has written an open letter to Clear Channel (N:CCU) and Viacom/Infinity (N:VIA) urging both companies to open their airwaves to the 135 candidates in the California gubernatorial recall circus.

The letter notes that Clear Channel's "refusal" is conditional - - it will only sell ads to candidates who agree to buy all 20 stations in the group's "political action network."

AFBC says it isn't sure why the ban is in place, but if it's to preserve inventory for traditional advertisers, AFBC's Meredith McGehee wrote, "...the need to balance demands from commercial advertisers should not be used to justify a blanket ban on political advertising by state and local candidates. This kind of ban strongly disserves the public interest by making it difficult for voters to sort out the competitive candidates from the fringe candidates (especially in a field as crowded as this one), and to get the information they need about the political races that have the greatest impact on their lives."

Clear Channel Radio CEO John Hogan told TVBR his company was sticking with its plan for selling ads to California candidates. "Clear Channel Radio stations have made and will continue to make time available to the over 100 candidates for the statewide post on our statewide PAN. We believe this is the most fair and efficient way to provide access to gubernatorial candidates. It 'delivers' the entire state and is easy to purchase, traffic, and invoice," he said.

At deadline, Viacom had not responded to RBR's request for comment on the AFBC letter.

RBR observation:

We believe that the California recall shouldn't serve as a benchmark for anything, and especially not for how politicians and broadcasters interact. We know that if we were broadcasting in the state right now, we'd be extremely reluctant to accept any political advertising.

Why? The answer is simple. Equal time.

If we sell one minute a day to one candidate, we must be prepared to sell a minute to every candidate. If all of them bite, that's two hours and 15 minutes in one day. On a station selling 15 minutes an hour, that's nine full hours worth of inventory.

Not only can this surreal, once-in-a-lifetime election disrupt normal business, it can get a station in legal hot water. We're not at all surprised that many find it a can of worms best left unopened.


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