CORPORATION FOR PUBLIC BROADCASTING OVERSIGHT AND A LOOK INTO PUBLIC BROAD- CASTING IN THE DIGITAL ERA HEARING BEFORE THE SUBCOMMITTEE ON TELECOMMUNICATIONS AND THE INTERNET OF THE COMMITTEE ON ENERGY AND COMMERCE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES ONE HUNDRED SEVENTH CONGRESS SECOND SESSION JULY 10, 2002 Serial No. 107–133 Printed for the use of the Committee on Energy and Commerce ( Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.access.gpo.gov/congress/house U.S. GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE 80–683CC WASHINGTON : 2002 For sale by the Superintendent of Documents, U.S. Government Printing Office Internet: bookstore.gpo.gov Phone: toll free (866) 512–1800; DC area (202) 512–1800 Fax: (202) 512–2250 Mail: Stop SSOP, Washington, DC 20402–0001 VerDate Dec 13 2002 14:59 Jan 27, 2003 Jkt 083045 PO 00000 Frm 00001 Fmt 5011 Sfmt 5011 W:\DISC\80683 80683 VerDate Dec 13 2002 14:59 Jan 27, 2003 Jkt 083045 PO 00000 Frm 00002 Fmt 5011 Sfmt 5011 W:\DISC\80683 80683 COMMITTEE ON ENERGY AND COMMERCE W.J. ‘‘BILLY’’ TAUZIN, Louisiana, Chairman MICHAEL BILIRAKIS, Florida JOHN D. DINGELL, Michigan JOE BARTON, Texas HENRY A. WAXMAN, California FRED UPTON, Michigan EDWARD J. MARKEY, Massachusetts CLIFF STEARNS, Florida RALPH M. HALL, Texas PAUL E. GILLMOR, Ohio RICK BOUCHER, Virginia JAMES C. GREENWOOD, Pennsylvania EDOLPHUS TOWNS, New York CHRISTOPHER COX, California FRANK PALLONE, Jr., New Jersey NATHAN DEAL, Georgia SHERROD BROWN, Ohio RICHARD BURR, North Carolina BART GORDON, Tennessee ED WHITFIELD, Kentucky PETER DEUTSCH, Florida GREG GANSKE, Iowa BOBBY L. RUSH, Illinois CHARLIE NORWOOD, Georgia ANNA G. ESHOO, California BARBARA CUBIN, Wyoming BART STUPAK, Michigan JOHN SHIMKUS, Illinois ELIOT L. ENGEL, New York HEATHER WILSON, New Mexico TOM SAWYER, Ohio JOHN B. SHADEGG, Arizona ALBERT R. WYNN, Maryland CHARLES ‘‘CHIP’’ PICKERING, Mississippi GENE GREEN, Texas VITO FOSSELLA, New York KAREN MCCARTHY, Missouri ROY BLUNT, Missouri TED STRICKLAND, Ohio TOM DAVIS, Virginia DIANA DEGETTE, Colorado ED BRYANT, Tennessee THOMAS M. BARRETT, Wisconsin ROBERT L. EHRLICH, Jr., Maryland BILL LUTHER, Minnesota STEVE BUYER, Indiana LOIS CAPPS, California GEORGE RADANOVICH, California MICHAEL F. DOYLE, Pennsylvania CHARLES F. BASS, New Hampshire CHRISTOPHER JOHN, Louisiana JOSEPH R. PITTS, Pennsylvania JANE HARMAN, California MARY BONO, California GREG WALDEN, Oregon LEE TERRY, Nebraska ERNIE FLETCHER, Kentucky DAVID V. MARVENTANO, Staff Director JAMES D. BARNETTE, General Counsel REID P.F. STUNTZ, Minority Staff Director and Chief Counsel SUBCOMMITTEE ON TELECOMMUNICATIONS AND THE INTERNET FRED UPTON, Michigan, Chairman MICHAEL BILIRAKIS, Florida EDWARD J. MARKEY, Massachusetts JOE BARTON, Texas BART GORDON, Tennessee CLIFF STEARNS, Florida BOBBY L. RUSH, Illinois Vice Chairman ANNA G. ESHOO, California PAUL E. GILLMOR, Ohio ELIOT L. ENGEL, New York CHRISTOPHER COX, California GENE GREEN, Texas NATHAN DEAL, Georgia KAREN MCCARTHY, Missouri BARBARA CUBIN, Wyoming BILL LUTHER, Minnesota JOHN SHIMKUS, Illinois BART STUPAK, Michigan HEATHER WILSON, New Mexico DIANA DEGETTE, Colorado CHARLES ‘‘CHIP’’ PICKERING, Mississippi JANE HARMAN, California VITO FOSSELLA, New York RICK BOUCHER, Virginia ROY BLUNT, Missouri SHERROD BROWN, Ohio TOM DAVIS, Virginia TOM SAWYER, Ohio ROBERT L. EHRLICH, Jr., Maryland JOHN D. DINGELL, Michigan, CHARLES F. BASS, New Hampshire (Ex Officio) LEE TERRY, Nebraska W.J. ‘‘BILLY’’ TAUZIN, Louisiana (Ex Officio) (II) VerDate Dec 13 2002 14:59 Jan 27, 2003 Jkt 083045 PO 00000 Frm 00003 Fmt 6011 Sfmt 0486 W:\DISC\80683 80683 C O N T E N T S Page Testimony of: Coonrad, Robert T., President and CEO, Corporation for Public Broad- casting ............................................................................................................ 26 Klose, Kevin, President and CEO, National Public Radio ............................ 50 Lafferty, Andrea S., Executive Director, Traditional Values Coalition ....... 55 Lawson, John M., President and CEO, Association of Public Television Stations .......................................................................................................... 60 Mitchell, Pat, President and CEO, Public Broadcasting Service .................. 45 Walker, Laura R., President and CEO, WNYC-FM ...................................... 73 Willner, Michael, President and CEO, Insight Communication ................... 69 (III) 2 VerDate Dec 13 2002 14:59 Jan 27, 2003 Jkt 083045 PO 00000 Frm 00004 Fmt 0486 Sfmt 0486 W:\DISC\80683 80683 CORPORATION FOR PUBLIC BROADCASTING OVERSIGHT AND A LOOK INTO PUBLIC BROADCASTING IN THE DIGITAL ERA WEDNESDAY, JULY 10, 2002 HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, COMMITTEE ON ENERGY AND COMMERCE, SUBCOMMITTEE ON TELECOMMUNICATIONS AND THE INTERNET, Washington, DC. The subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 10 a.m., in room 2123, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Fred Upton (chairman) presiding. Members present: Representatives Upton, Barton, Stearns, Gillmor, Cubin, Shimkus, Pickering, Fossella, Blunt, Davis, Bass, Terry, Tauzin (ex officio), Markey, Rush, Eshoo, Engel, Green, McCarthy, Luther, Stupak, Harman, Brown, and Sawyer. Also present: Representative Burr. Staff present: Linda Bloss-Baum, majority counsel; Will Nordwind, policy coordinator; Hollyn Kidd, legislative clerk; Jon Tripp, press; Andy Levin, minority counsel; Brendan Kelsay, mi- nority professional staff; and Courtney Anderson, research assist- ant. Mr. UPTON. Good morning. I note that there are a number of other subcommittees meeting this morning and we are in session on the floor, but we don’t expect votes for a little while. Today’s hearing is entitled, ‘‘Corporation for Public Broadcasting Oversight and a Look into Public Broadcasting in the Digital Era.’’ I wanted to do this hearing because of as the stewards of the tax- payers’ dollars, Congress has an important responsibility to critical examine and review every program that it funds. It is the people’s hard-earned money, not the government’s. Today we are looking at the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, CPB, which receives about 12 percent of its funding from the Fed- eral Government. The rest of its budget comes from contributions made to it from other sources. In turn, both the Public Broad- casting System, PBS, and National Public Radio, NPR, receive its public funding from CPB. Among other things, there are a number of issues relating to public television which we will focus on today. I would note that every public TV station is required to convert from analog to digital by May of 2003. Today we will hear how progress toward that con- version is going around the country. (1) VerDate Dec 13 2002 14:59 Jan 27, 2003 Jkt 083045 PO 00000 Frm 00005 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 W:\DISC\80683 80683 2 We will also hear about progress being made in regard to the carriage of public broadcasters’ digital signals by our Nation’s cable companies. In addition, we will hear about the impact of the FCC’s decision last October to permit public TV stations to use its ancil- lary and supplemental digital spectrum for commercial purposes, like paging services, data transmissions, subscription video. The FCC believes that permitting such uses would enhance the public TV broadcasters’ private fund-raising potential, but a number of committee members have expressed concerns that the FCC’s deci- sion will increase the commercialization of public broadcasting, to the detriment of its principal mission. We are also looking forward to hearing from the Association of Public TV Stations about its proposed Homeland Security Initia- tive, which would utilize some of the public TV stations’ spectrum to datacast emergency broadcast information to the personal com- puters of first-responders. Such a system would appear to provide an additional layer of redundancy in our Nation’s emergency com- munication systems. In the wake of September 11, the need for such redundancy has become all the more evident. Now also a word about public radio: It has been no secret that for years NPR has been dogged by allegations of a liberal bias. The national media in general has been dogged by similar allegations. When you come from a part of the country known for its Midwest common-sense conservative values, these allegations do not go without notice. However, the big difference between NPR and the national media in general is that NPR receives taxpayer funding while the na- tional media does not. As such, NPR does have a distinct responsi- bility to provide objective and balanced reporting. Today we will hear from the Traditional Values Coalition, TVC, about a recent incident which it feels clearly demonstrates the lib- eral bias at NPR. I have to say that, as I reviewed the facts, TVC does have a legitimate complaint about the egregious treatment it received at the hands of the NPR reporter at issue in the case. I am not going to belabor the details, but suffice it to say that I do want to hear NPR’s response. The bottom line is that we can- not tolerate any biased reporting from taxpayer-supported public broadcasting, and I want to know what assurances NPR and CPB can provide that their reporting is, and will continue to be, objec- tive. I look forward to hearing from today’s witnesses. I also want to say that, as we look down the road, I do want to see us come with a reauthorization of CPB. It has not been done since 1992, and I would hope that today’s hearing sets the stage for that work to be done in the not-to-distant future. With that, I yield to my friend, the ranking minority leader of the subcommittee, Mr. Markey from Massachusetts. Mr. MARKEY. I thank the gentleman very much, and I want to commend you for holding this hearing this morning on the Public Broadcasting System. Public television and radio are the crown jewels of broadcast me- dium, and I am pleased that we have an opportunity today to ex- plore ways in which we can make the system stronger and prepare to meet the needs of its communities in the digital era. VerDate Dec 13 2002 14:59 Jan 27, 2003 Jkt 083045 PO 00000 Frm 00006 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 W:\DISC\80683 80683 3 I believe that it is vital to express our firm commitment to pro- viding an electronic oasis for learning and information and what has been called the vast wasteland of commercial television.