It turns out that the US government’s asinine “equal time” rule for broadcasters, which requires them to give all candidates for office equal time on their stations, will be applied to effectively bar the broadcasting of Arnold Schwarzenegger movies in California for the duration of the recall campaign.
Arnold Schwarzenegger’s foray into California’s gubernatorial recall election poses a dilemma for broadcasters who might be tempted to show his films during the race: Doing so would allow rival candidates to demand equal time.
For that reason, broadcasters in California will likely not air Schwarzenegger movies such as “Total Recall” and the “Terminator” or a repeat of a “Diff’rent Strokes” episode with Gary Coleman for the next few months.
Cable channels are not covered by the Federal Communications Commission’s equal-time provision, which in the past kept reruns of “Death Valley Days” off the air while Ronald Reagan ran for president.
Since there are 240 candidates, no broadcaster would possibly risk having to cough up 2 hours for each candidate as “equal time” for Arnold’s movie appearances.
This rule does not apply to news broadcasts? If it did then the results would surely be ridiculous.
So therefore we have a situation where it is perfectly fine for local television stations to report what Arnold has said about the election and his opponents, but it is not okay to show him in an old movie playing a killer robot. Okay.
The rule only apply to broadcast television station. Cable & satellite channels are not covered by this rule, and they can play “Total Recal” and “Raw Deal” to their heart’s content.
I guess they’ll just have an “Arnee Week” immediately before the Election oficially starts…
Considering that there’s a pornographer and a female porn star also running for governor, the 2 hours of equal time that would be given to each candidate could’ve gotten interesting.
The total count of people applying to run hit a high of 247 however it seems that some of my compatriots are a tad dense when it comes to filling out govt forms and screwed it up and got rejected.
as of now, there are 131 “completed” applications with only 40 more pending. so it looks like we will have somewhere between 131 and 171 people running for real. here is the link.
http://www.ss.ca.gov/elections/recall_cand.htm
and have you seen the bizarre rules for listing the order of names? unreal…
here is the FAQ
http://www.ss.ca.gov/elections/faq_statewide_special.htm
it looks like this will cost us over 65 million. and lawsuits are almost guaranteed. last Gubernatorial election (8 months ago) we had 5,000 polling places. this time cause time is so short, and we don’t have the money to pay for them, we will only have 1,800 polling places. as one pol said yesterday, you can bet they’re not gonna cut the number of polling stations in Beverly Hills but that means they will be cutting them in Watts. so here is at least one lawsuit coming.
Guyjean
This story is a bit of a red herring. I believe the FCC’s formal “equal-time” rule sunsetted many years ago. It remains a custom with over-the-air broadcasters, however, and some here are saying that they will observe the custom as a way of heading off lawsuits that would take time and money to defend, even if the stations might ultimately be victorious.
In other words, the broadcast stations are trying to promote a reputation for fairness and objectivity, by hiding behind a “rule” that no longer exists. I am surprised that more so-called “news accounts” of this angle do NOT mention that the rule has long been rescinded, and instead concentrate on the extra dollop of absurdity that the “fairness rule” plops into our recall mess.
Perhaps “Arnie” could start his own cable channel! Would that be cheating?
This is a case of a good idea being poorly implemented in the law (as happens all too often). The original intent was to prevent broadcasters from refusing to sell air time to political candidates. All too often candidates would find it impossible to find a local advertiser. This could be a significant problem in smaller towns where one person effectively owned everything – including the politicians.
I think the FCC equal time rule is still on the books. One seemingly lucid historical account of it is here, and it doesn’t reflect any sunset.
Here’s
a federal circuit court case that addresses the candidate access and equal time issues. They are independent requirements, and both seem to still be on the books. The equal time requirement arises in statute, so the FCC couldn’t repeal it outright.
I do apologize. I made the common mistake of confusing the Fairness Doctrine with the Equal Time Rule. The Fairness Doctrine went away in 1987. I had thought the Equal Time Rule was a subset that also went away at the same time, but it turns out to be an independent provision, which apparently remains in force.
As a former broadcaster who was once effectively required to know the Communications Act of 1934 backwards and forwards, in order to pass qualifying tests for government radio operator licenses, I am suitably chagrined. I take comfort only in the knowledge that there is a big corporate radio news organization out there that made the same mistake, since I heard them confirming my “knowledge” of this topic in a news report last night, while driving home from work. Ironically enough, I said out loud (to no one in particular in the otherwise empty car), “Finally! Some news guys who got it right!” I guess I’ll switch newsradio channels, now. 🙂 This only goes to show: just because an “official” news outlet feeds back to you the same misinformation you think you’ve known for years (decades!), that doesn’t make it true. I appreciate the correction, especially the citation to the FCC’s own site.
Here is a webpage that contrasts the two doctrines, in case anyone wants to look further into the situation. I would have preferred to cite the recent informational memo on the Equal Time topic, which was sent by the National Association of Broadcasters to its California members, but that info doesn’t appear to be available via the public portion of their website.
The same rule applied to Ronald Reagan in 1980, of course. If I remember correctly, his movies couldn’t be shown during the first four years of his presidency, either, since there was a possible re-election campaign to look forward to.
If this is true in Arnie’s case, Californians may face a blackout of his movies until the next gubernatorial election.
But… he’ll be back.
Shit, I better rush to the theatre to see the T3 before the blackout.
Oh, I just LOVE gov regulations.
So much for the First Amendment, then.
changing the subject a bit, a good friend of mine in California, Russell Whitaker, points out that Arnie could be another RINO – Republican In Name Only. He hasn’t answered clear questions about where he stands on welfare, tax, etc. He favours gun control, is not, by all accounts keen on school vouchers. Apart from abortion and gay marriage, there’s nothing there which libertarians might feel comfortable about.
Having said all of which, if Arnie really has been reading Milton Friedman’s Free to Choose, and has genuinely soaked up the wisdom of that great little tome, we might be pleasantly surprised if he wins.
FX (Fox’s cable dumping ground) started running old Arnie movies the day he announced his candidacy.
Considering that Gary Coleman is also running, does that mean they also have to take “Different Strokes” episodes off TV. Not that thats a bad thing, just wondering …