As long as this old fossil and his like-minded cohorts dominate PBS programming, there will always be political advertising on air.
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Posted on 04/12/2012 12:38:07 PM PDT by raccoonradio
(Reuters) - A divided U.S. appeals court struck down a federal ban on political advertising on public TV and radio stations, a decision that could open the public airwaves to a heavy dose of campaign ads leading up to the November elections.
By a 2-1 vote, a panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco said the Federal Communications Commission violated the First Amendment's free speech clause by blocking public broadcasters from running political and public issue ads.
The court said the ban was over broad and that lifting it would not threaten to undermine the educational nature of public broadcast stations. It upheld a ban on ads for goods and services on behalf of for-profit companies.
"Public issue and political speech in particular is at the very core of the First Amendment's protection," Judge Carlos Bea wrote in the main opinion.
"Public issue and political advertisements pose no threat of ‘commercialization,'" he continued. "By definition, such advertisements do not encourage viewers to buy commercial goods and services. A ban on such advertising therefore cannot be narrowly tailored to serve the interest of preventing the 'commercialization' of broadcasting."
Minority Television Project, a non-profit that runs KMPT-TV in San Francisco, had challenged the FCC after being fined $10,000 for running paid ads from companies such as insurer State Farm and General Motors Co's Chevrolet division.
The FCC countered that the government has a significant interest in ensuring the airing of educational programming, many of which run on Public Broadcasting Service stations.
It said if public broadcasters became more dependent on ads, they might end up replacing "Sesame Street" with programming that may appeal to a wider range of viewers or listeners.
(Excerpt) Read more at chicagotribune.com ...
I know I’m not too crazy about having my taxpayer money going to CPB/PBS. In some ways I wouldn’t mind having PBS
become ad-supported (some of the “donorships” seem to come
close anyway). But this is interesting. Exactly what big
interests are involved here in terms of issues and
candidate advertising?
>>”IT SCARES ME TO DEATH”
\Norman Ornstein, resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, said the decision could “fundamentally change the character of public television and radio” by allowing deep-pocketed political and other organizations to begin “swooping” onto the public airwaves to air their messages.
SEIU for Obama.
Can’t be. Public TV always brags during their quarterly month-long beg-a-thons they don’t have any ads on their channels.
As long as this old fossil and his like-minded cohorts dominate PBS programming, there will always be political advertising on air.
If this is true, not any more. At least candidates and
issue ads may be coming soon.
“All Things Considered” brought to you by Obama 2012
“Fight Global Warming now! And stay tuned for a very fair
and balanced edition of ‘Frontline’”
When does PBS hire Olbermann? Maybe with some money coming in from these ads they can afford to.
“We’ll be right back to All Things Considered right after this message from Joe Kennedy III
for Congress”
“Hello, PBS? Yes, this is the Republican Party and we’d like to have you run some ads for us.— Hello... hello?...”
The 9th Circus Court strikes again!
As usual. Think PBS and NPR will want to take ads from those on the Right?
Only those on the right watch PBS and NPR. So they’ll preach to the choir. Ha ha!
And just how will listeners to NPR be able to distinguish political ads from their usual progressive duckspeak?
And PBS? Aren’t the talking heads already Democrat operators and shills?
Oh well, it’s their business, I guess. They take all the risks. That’s what makes America great!
PBS was spawned in an era when there were only three commercial channel choices.
If they won't privatize it, they should at least sell it to some foreign government. NHK (Japan) would be a wise choice since they actually have bought some of the better programming (e.g. Sesame Street) and turned a profit on it. I would bet you would see NHK improve the lineup of worthwhile programming and unload the the unprofitable leftist propaganda. Let MSNBC or whomever pick up that crap.
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