I found this story about a Washington TV station that was forced by the FCC to accept a candidate’s political ad. The actual issue is quite narrow, but it got me wondering. Under what circumstances can a TV or radio station refuse to sell air time to a particular candidate? And when can it refuse to air a specific ad due to content?
Good question. Maybe itf it violated some sort of FCC censorship standard like full-frontal nudity.
Larry Flynt said he was going to run for president and have porno in his ads because he said TV stations were forced to run them. He never ran so the issue never came up. My guess is no TV station would have run those ads regardless of the law.
A real world case would go to the courts, so it’s hard to say which basic right would prevail. Political speech rights are extremely strong, so it would take a trigger of outright illegality - hate speech, calls for violence or assassination, or obscenity - to generate a case. The facts and the courts would determine the outcome. You couldn’t predict it in advance.
I don’t think the law has changed since my days in broadcasting, but I’ll caveat my answer by saying it’s been a few years.
A station doesn’t have to accept any political advertising, but once it accepts one, it has to accept them all. (Example: a public radio or TV station may reject any and all forms of advertising, including political ads.)
A station is not allowed to reject, censor or edit a political ad. (Take a look at this classic ad from Lyndon LaRouche, which would have been clearly libelous in any situation other than politics.)
(Or Barry Commoner’s frequent use of the word “bullshit” in his commericals when he ran for President.)
A station is required to charge the “lowest unit rate” for all political ads.
The one thing a station can, and will, do is demand payment upfront for a political ad. They do this because candidates and campaigns have frequently been known to simply not pay their bills after they lost.
There is also a rule that says stations are supposed to provide equal time for both candidates. So a station cannot air one party’s ads but then refuse to air the opponent’s.
A lot of this is from memory, but I think it is right. In the US the FCC differentiates between ads from the campaign, and third party ads. Campaign ads are the ones that have to be offered the lowest rate, although I believe if they want designate a certain timeslot the station can charge more. Campaign ads can not be refused for any reason – if they are obscene or libelous, the station is immune from prosecution, although the ad’s sponsors can be taken to court. However, third party ads provide no such protection, so the stations have to ensure they meet legal standards. (I heard a local station owner recently note the difficulty in keeping the two classes of ads straight).
There was a case many years ago where the FCC said that a station was permitted to limit an ad featuring pictures of aborted fetuses to late-night hours, so they have a limited amount control of when ads appear based on content.
The idea is that it must match the “most favored” sponsor rate. I assume this is equal to whatever the lowest rate is for that time slot.
You’re confusing the old Equal Time requirements, which applied only to programming—and in any case have been gone since the Reagan Administration—with the rules regarding political broadcast advertising. However, the reason for the lowest unit rate rule is to keep a station from charging Republicans $2 per minute and Democrats $800 per minute, so it’s also a sort of equality requirement.
You’re confusing the old Equal Time requirements, which applied only to programming—and in any case have been gone since the Reagan Administration—with the rules regarding political broadcast advertising. However, the reason for the lowest unit rate rule is to keep a station from charging Republicans $2 per minute and Democrats $800 per minute, so it’s also a sort of equality requirement.
Back in my radio announcer days, I once aired a spot for a buddy running for high school class vice-president. My general manager, bemused by the stunt, charged me the lowest unit rate: $4.
This isn’t a direct answer to your OP but it is relevant: networks seem to have carte blanche in refusing ads not affiliated with a specific candidate. The one that came to mind for me was CBS refusing to air a MoveOn.org ad against George W. Bush during the 2004 Superbowl. This guy lists them and CNN refusing a pro-Israel ad among a couple others.
Interesting article in DailyCaller.com, In some cases, Romney paid four times as much for TV ads as Obama, which states “The cost differential is attributable to the fact that Team Obama bought ‘preemptable’ or ‘lowest unit rate’ ads — while Team Romney paid for ‘fixed,’ non-preemptable rates.”