Key chairman eyes spectrum fee to aid pubcasting

Originally published in Current, Dec. 16, 1996

The congressman who is inheriting the CPB funding issue, Rep. W.J. (Billy) Tauzin (R-La.), says he wants to consider deregulating commercial broadcasters if they will pay spectrum fees that would support pubcasting.

Tauzin--expected to be named chairman of the House telecom subcommittee next month--sent up the trial balloon in an interview on the public TV show TechnoPolitics late in November.

The congressman is committed to find "some type of longterm funding" for pubcasting, but is "still kicking a number of ideas around in his head," said his spokesman, Ken Johnson.

Tauzin plans hearings to "explore the role of public television and radio," he told Electronic Media in November. If he connects that subject with the hot issue of digital channel auctions, it could come up fairly soon.

The subcommittee's agenda is crowded with other hearings, however. Besides looking at the digital auction issue, Tauzin wants hearings on how well the FCC is implementing this year's Telecom Act, the spokesman said, and how to deal with on-air liquor advertising.

Tauzin opposes auctions to sell the channels for TV's transition to digital transmission, the spokesman said, but is open to the idea of leasing the channels to commercial broadcasters.

In its consideration of digital spectrum auctions, Congress has looked mainly at the revenue that the auctions could raise and not at other consequences, Tauzin complained on TechnoPolitics. Auctions are "not strictly a budget question," he said. "It has to do with the longstanding agreement we have had with commercial broadcasters that they provide this service over the air, free; that they provide it in the public interest; and that they include in the format some things that are required of them on behalf of the general public that, frankly maybe ought to be provided by public television, radio. We need to rethink that. As we rethink that, there may be ways of funding the public television and radio effort that we have not yet thought about, and I want to explore those possibilities."

Journalist James Glassman, host of the program, asked: "So what you're saying is maybe instead of having commercial broadcasters perform some of these functions, that they could shift it to public TV and pay public TV?"

"Yes," Tauzin responded. "I mean, there is nothing to say you couldn't have a lease perhaps, or some sort of fee system that would do that. I think we ought to explore that. I think we ought to examine simply--before we rush off and sell that spectrum--what it is we do when we change the nature of public television."

"I don't think you can sell that spectrum and still demand public-interest programming from the commercial broadcasters," Tauzin said. "So if you want some commitment to perform that, maybe it ought to be shifted to public television. Maybe the commercial broadcasters can help make that happen in some arrangement."

Tauzin was wary of a spectrum auction that could damage commercial TV. "If we alter the nature of commercial, over-the-air television so dramatically that Americans no longer can see their favorite football game without having to pay a special duty," Tauzin predicted to Electronic Media, "there's going to be a little hue and cry out there."

"I don't want to look at auctioning the spectrum from commercial broadcasters without fully understanding the impact on the public service commitment, the nature of commercial television and the nature of public television and radio," Tauzin told EM.

Unopposed on the bayou

Tauzin has a handshake agreement with House Commerce Committee Chairman Thomas Bliley (R-Va.) that he will chair the telecom panel in the new Congress, according to his spokesman.

As a senior member of the committee, he beat out Rep. Mike Oxley (R-Ohio) to succeed the retired subcommittee chairman, Jack Fields. In hearings last session, Tauzin's remarks about funding of public broadcasting had been markedly more supportive than Oxley's.

Tauzin represents the Cajun counties between New Orleans and the Gulf Coast, and opposes environmental and other regulations that threaten the petrochemical and fishing industries, which are important there.

The congressman came to the Hill in 1980 as a Democrat, but he voted often with Republicans and backed Newt Gingrich's Contract with America. In August 1995, Tauzin announced he was switching parties. "I decided to go with a party that respects my ideas," he said then.

Tauzin spent eight years in the state legislature before coming to Congress, and failed in a 1987 attempt to return to Baton Rouge as governor.

But, like the winners in five of the seven Louisiana congressional districts, he was popular enough to be reelected without opposition this year.

He has gained great support from users of backyard satellite dishes for his 1992 legislation that makes cable networks available via satellite.