New Hampshire Discusses Broadcasting Issues
Washington -Sen. John Sununu, R-NH, said Tuesday that broadcasters need to be persuaded to offer free air time to political candidates.
Sununu, a member of the Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee, which has jurisdiction over broadcasting, spoke at a National Association of Broadcasters State Leadership Conference
Although legislation to provide free air time is not something Congress is likely to discuss this year, Sununu said, campaign financing reformers will look for other ways to meet the high costs of running for office. Public financing is controversial, he said, and it’s difficult to “get the public to scrape up” the money to pay for it. So it has to be done, he said, by “forcing broadcasters to give free air time.”
But Sununu cited constitutional reasons for not making free air time mandatory.
He recommended that broadcasting stations think in advance of how to make free air time accessible, and with some planning, they will “be the better for it.”
WNDS, channel 50 in Derry , offers free air time through debates and informational interviews during the election season and on weekend shows, news director Alicia Preston said in a telephone interview.
WMUR, channel 9 in Manchester , recently did 14 half-hour shows, two one-hour specials and two live debates with the Democratic presidential candidates. Thirty days before the primary, WMUR asked the major candidates to answer 10 questions “without editorial comment,” general manager Jeff Bartlett said. “We don’t believe it [free air time] should be mandated because we offer plenty of opportunities without a mandate”
Sununu also talked about the Satellite Home Viewer Improvement Act, which, according to the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) Web site, “permits satellite carriers to transmit local television broadcast signals into local markets. The act also allows “satellite carriers to provide distant or national broadcast programming to subscribers.”
Although Sununu said he didn’t think there would be “any dramatic changes” in the law, he believes it should “reflect an updating and modification based on what viewers have come to expect.”
“Consumers have a strong expectation that what’s free over the air should be part of their cable package,” said FCC Commissioner Kevin Martin.
According to last year’s New Hampshire House Journal, many satellite subscribers in New Hampshire are in the Portland/Auburn area and don’t receive ABC affiliate WMUR..
Some northern counties, such as Coos, Carroll and Grafton, are considered to be in Maine ‘ market, so they don’t receive WMUR, Bartlett said. Dish network EchoStar is so far south that those counties are unable to get the station’s signal, he said.
Last August, Rep. Jeb Bradley, R-NH, and Rep. Charles Bass, R-NH, proposed an amendment that would provide access for states with only one affiliate station to that station’s signals through satellite, according to a press release. “The amendment would allow people in northern counties to choose to watch us,” Bartlett said.
Another problem is that New Hampshire doesn’t have many local stations, Sununu said. WNDS covers the area north of Concord and down to the seacoast, the Maine border, some of Vermont and a large portion of Massachusetts . “A station like ours, which also covers an enormous amount of Massachusetts , has a lot of land to cover,” Preston said.
Comcast subscribers Anthony Jones in Portsmouth and Bill Robinson in Dover receive WMUR but say there is a lack of variety.
“You don’t get as much local news as you want,” said Jones, a restaurant worker. “It’s all about what’s going on around the world, and it’s not relevant to here.”
Robinson said he watches channel 6 in Portland , Maine . He said the station has some New Hampshire news, and it doesn’t really bother him to watch another state’s news since he has beach property in the Pine Tree State .
