FCC head speaks on campus today

In what is being billed as one of his last major policy talks, outgoing Federal Communications Commission Chairperson Reed Hundt will address free television time for political candidates at the Annenberg School for Communication today at 2 p.m. The speech will also be the last major event held in the Annenberg School auditorium, before its space is turned over to the school's Public Policy Center. The school's work analyzing last year's experiments with short segments of free time for presidential candidate statements led Hundt to choose Penn as the site for his speech. Annenberg Dean Kathleen Hall Jamieson predicted that Hundt would discuss his new "time bank" proposal, which merges the issues of free time for candidates, campaign finance reform and the expansion of available spectrum for television broadcast. Broadly defined, Hundt's proposal calls for broadcasters to provide a public service -- i.e., free time to political candidates -- in return for a proportional amount of extra spectrum space to use as they pleased. In return, candidates would have to agree to certain campaign finance limitations. Hundt has not yet specified how the free air time could be used. During last year's free time experiment, all the air time had to be used for on-camera statements by the candidate, rather than campaign ads. Jamieson called the plan innovative, saying it attempts to solve several current issues at once. "There's an attempt to take money out of the system or minimize influence, but to give candidates what they've been amassing the money for -- they've been purchasing advertising," she said. A spokesperson for Hundt said the speech would not reveal any new policy initiatives, but that Hundt would discuss specific proposals now in Congress for free air time and campaign finance reform. Jamie Daves, a legislative affairs specialist for the FCC and a 1995 College graduate, also said Hundt will call for an FCC inquiry to study the feasibility of his plan as soon as possible. The Annenberg School has been heavily involved in analysis of the proposals for free air time, a cause which is gaining support in Washington side-by-side with campaign finance overhaul. Faculty and graduate students at the school studied the effectiveness of last year's experiment with free TV time, during which the major networks granted each presidential candidate brief spots to discuss specific issues. Jamieson said research showed the segments often contained more accurate and informative policy statements, while featuring far fewer attacks on other candidates, than standard political advertising. Few people, however, recalled watching the segments, with only 22.3 percent of Americans reporting that they saw a free spot. But Jamieson explained that there was no Nielsen ratings drop-off during these segments, as the networks had feared, leading her to believe that more Americans saw the free spots than remembered doing so. "[The Public Policy Center] has become an increasing force in Washington," Daves said.

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