Such information would include the names of candidates or groups running a spot, the time, placement and cost of the air-time, as well as the reason for the broadcast.
Currently, ad information is kept at individual stations as hard copies, but this plan would require all broadcasters to upload the information to a public website.
The FCC is moving quickly on the proposal and the commissioners have already approved the plan, which means that it will be printed in the Federal Register and open to public comment for the next month, before final regulations are established next spring.
Broadcasters, are worried that such a plan will amount to an inordinate amount of work and high costs with some state broadcast group estimating that the new requirements will cost $24 million in the first year, according to an AdAge article.
There is also worry that it will also cost them more in ad revenue, as political groups will be able to see what their competitors are spending and negotiate lower rates.
But while broadcasters are voicing concern, media reform groups are applauding the FCC’s move.
“The FCC is just trying to bring the broadcasters into the 21st century,” said Corie Wright, an attorney for Free Press, in the AdAge article.
She also added that this while she doesn’t think it will affect the advertising cash flow coming into broadcasters, that it will definitely bring added scrutiny to independent political groups advertising in the next election.
In the past four years there has been a dramatic increase in outside groups funding political ads.
During the 2010 midterm election, for example, independent groups spent a total of $48 million on TV ads, which was up $35 million from the previous midterm elections, according to the Campaign Media Analysis Group, an organization that tracks political spending.
There is a growing concern over the kind of influence these large independent organizations can have over elections when they have large bank accounts to draw from and the public does not know that they are funding the campaign.
Proposition 8 in California is a prime example of this. The Church of Latter Day Saints, a group based in Utah, funded TV ads in favor of the proposition that would have eliminated same-sex marriage in the state, but very few people knew this until after the proposition had passed. In fact, the LDS church was fined for failing to follow campaign disclosure policies during the last two weeks leading up to the election.
Many have an increasing anxiety over how the Supreme Court’s decision in the Citizens United case will affect the coming election. The ruling allows unlimited spending by corporations and unions on political advertisements.
This FCC plan may be the organizations way of limiting the effects of that ruling, and giving some power back to the public.
“In an age of secretive political spending by unregulated outside groups like super PACs, consumers deserve to know who is using the pubic airwaves, and for what purpose,” said Rep. Anna Eshoo, D-California, in AdAge. “Burying that information in an out-of-the-way filing cabinet doesn’t meet the high standard the public deserves.”
Yet, while the FCC is making an effort to create more transparency in political advertising, there are still more groups that they would take this make-over even further.
For years, groups like Alliance for Better Campaign and Common Cause have been lobbying for more open and accountable campaign finance. In particular, they tried, unsuccessfully, to add an amendment to the McCain-Feingold-Shays-Meehan Campaign Finance Reform Act of 2001 that would have required broadcast companies to provide free airtime to candidates.
One of their most vocal supporters was Walter Cronkite who criticized, in a 2002 article, the campaign finance laws that allow elections to "be purchased by special interests.”
He noted that all European democracies provide their candidates with extensive free airtime and pointed out that of all democratic nations, only seven do not provide free airtime – Ecuador, Honduras, Malaysia, Taiwan, Tanzania, Trinidad and Tobago and the United States.
"The failure to give free airtime for our political campaigns endangers our democracy," Cronkite said.
What do you think? Has the FCC gone too far or not far enough? What effect does unregulated political ad spending have on democracy?
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