Commission rules, a codification of existing rulings by the Commission with respect to section 315 of the Communications Act.

For the purpose of the record, section 315 purports to require that when any candidate is allowed to utilize the facilities of a broadcaster, either in radio or television, the station shall make available equal opportunity to the opponents of that candidate for that office. It also provides that with respect to broadcasts by political candidates there shall be no censorship by the station. It provides that the rates which may be charged to candidates may be no higher than those charged to commercial users. And it also provides that there is no obligation upon the station to provide any time for any political candidate except in carrying out the equal treatment of the different candidates for the office.

Now, the suggestions that have been made with respect to the placing of an obligation on stations to provide some specific, although undetermined, amount of time to candidates, has been made without any submission of specific language to this committee. The Commission's position essentially is this, that in the absence of the specific language which would amend section 315, either because it changed the obligations in that respect, or because it actually was a part of the act, the Commission is not in a position to provide any basic comment as to the desirability of such. The Commission, however, would like to indicate that in any such consideration there are basic problems which have to be gone into before you could determine whether it is desirable.

For example, it has been suggested that there should be an obligation upon stations to provide time to candidates. In our experience with respect to section 315, where we have a much more limited problem than merely requiring fair and equal treatment between candidates for the same office, a number of problems have come up which are bound to require consideration with respect to any proposal to modify this obligation.

First of all, you have to determine for what offices you would make this time available. There are a great variety of offices, and the number of offices which would be involved in any particular jurisdiction

Senator CURTIS. Excuse me, Mr. Baker.

By making time available, are you talking about making the purchase of time possible, or the giving of time? What are you discussing now?

Mr. BAKER. I was discussing only the basic question of whether there should be even an obligation.

I think also a second question must be whether it will be paid for by the candidate, by the Federal Treasury, or by the broadcasting stations themselves by making it available free. These are considerations that would have to be gone into.

But with respect to whether there would be any obligation, you have to determine the extent of the burden upon a particular station and how that would affect, for example, its carrying out of its other obligations to the public in providing its other services.

As I say, it would be necessary to determine for what offices, and it would be necessary to consider how much time for any particular candidate.

You would have to go into the question of whether all parties should be taken into account, considering the fact that we have found there are a multitude of splinter parties which under the equal opportunity of the present law are required to be taken into consideration; and whether or not you would consider spokesmen for candidates.

The present provision of section 315 applies only to candidates. You also would have to go into the question of who should bear the financial burden after you ascertained how much of a burden this would be. There have been suggestions that the Federal Treasury bear it. There have been suggestions that the broadcasters bear it, by making free time available. And of course you also have the other alternative, which is the present situation, that the candidates and their supporters should bear it.

We think those are basic problems which should be gone into, and they are not to be taken lightly. We don't believe and the Commission has considered this question very carefully that it could take a position for or against the bill until you could determine what you proposed to do, what specific obligations it would create, how this could be measured against the other obligations of the broadcasters to the public.

Senator CURTIS. Now, in the appearance of one member of the Commission, Commissioner Hennock, did she speak for anyone else on the Commission?

Mr. BAKER. If I recall her testimony, she was asked the question, and she pointed out that she was expressing her own personal view. Senator CURTIS. How many members are on the Commission?

Mr. BAKER. There are seven members on the Commission. And the views which I have given to the committee represent the views of the remaining six members.

Senator CURTIS. I see.

Apropos to what you have said, I have a letter here from a long-time and very experienced broadcaster. The letter just arrived, and I haven't had time to seek his permission to use his name in connection with it, so I will not mention it at present.

But here is what he said:

I had some personal experience during World War II in trying to administer the congressional law relating to broadcasting to our troops overseas-political boadcasting, that is. I headed the shortwave operations in San Francisco during the latter days of the war. We broadcast to all Allied troops west of San Francisco on an 11-station shortwave network. Political broadcasts were "measured" out to all parties-five of them-on an equal basis. So the GI's throughout the Pacific Ocean, Alaska, Central and South America, heard as much from the Socialist, Labor, and Prohibition Parties, as they did fom President Roosevelt and candidate Dewey.

You can well imagine the reaction of the GI's during that 1944 election.
That illustrates the problem you are talking about.

Mr. BAKER. That is correct. The present provisions of section 315 provide that if a candidate is permitted to utilize the facilities of a broadcaster, the broadcaster must then make equal time available for all of his legally qualified opponents for that office.

And in many instances there may be more parties than you have mentioned, and at least those.

Senator CURTIS. Five are mentioned in this letter.

Of course, at the present time there is this brake, that the candidate or the party or someone in their behalf has to pay for the time, isn't that right?

Mr. BAKER. To the extent that at the present time most broadcasters do not provide a substantial amount of free time, that is true. There are some offices to which they have provided free time.

Senator CURTIS. I understand. But that has been on a voluntary plan where they can see their way clear ahead of time to do it. Mr. BAKER. That is correct.

Senator CURTIS. But if we ever said by law that so much free time should be available, we would be faced with the proposition of giving free time to splinter political parties and candidates with no possibilities of winning, isn't that correct?

Mr. BAKER. Well, the Commission so far has felt that it was not permitted under the law to allow a broadcaster to determine whether to give time to some one merely on his analysis of whether they, the candidates, had a chance to win.

Senator CURTIS. No, I said you would be faced with the problem of giving time to all candidates if they were legally on the ballot. Mr. BAKER. You would either be faced with the question of giving them time, or the question of denying them and discriminating against one party as compared to the other.

Senator CURTIS. Are you prepared to express an opinion, or do you wish to express an opinion as to whether or not broadcasters should be required by law to give time free to political candidates?

Mr. BAKER. The Commission does not desire to express an opinion on that, as I said, because, first of all, you have no way of knowing until we have more specific language the extent of the burden.

Obviously, at the present time a certain amount of free time is made available for public events, matters of public interest. If, however, a specific amount of time were to be granted every week to a specific number of candidates, you would then get to the situation of how much of a burden this would be, and whether this burden would be an unfair financial burden on broadcasters is something about which the Commission cannot express itself until it has some idea of how much time we are talking about.

Senator CURTIS. And, likewise, you would have no position to express now on the suggestion that has been made that it be at public expense, because you are confronted with the same problem.

Mr. BAKER. But I can express this much of an opinion. The Commission has in the past generally felt that when the question is whether or not the public Treasury should be used to pay for something it is largely a matter within the competence of other departments of the Government rather than the Commission. We do not claim to be fiscal experts.

Senator CURTIS. I have in my hand a bulletin from the British Information Services, an agency of the British Government, radio section. This is headed "General Election No. 3, Political Parties' Use of Radio and Television," and it says this:

Radio and television will play an important part in the British General Election between dissolution day (May 6) and polling day (May 26), but air time allowed to the political parties will be strictly rationed.

A total of 5 hours, 15 minutes radio and TV time has been allocated by the BBC, during which millions of voters will be able to hear broadcasts by leading figures in each party.

The time will be split up as follows: The Conservative and the Labor Parties will each have 4 radio broadcasts, and 3 on television. The Liberals will have one in each medium.

Sound broadcasts will each last 20 minutes and will be after the 9 p. m. (London time) news broadcast, which is one of the major news bulletins of the day and perhaps the most widely heard.

On TV the Conservative and Labor Parties will each have 1 period of 30 minutes and 2 of 15 minutes. The Liberals will get one 15-minute period.

BBC policy. This is in accordance with the policy of the British Broadcasting Corp. a public corporation operating under royal charter-whose services reaches into virtually every home in the nation with radio and can reach well over 80 percent of the people with TV.

The political parties agree among themselves on how to divide the blocks of radio and TV time allocated free by the BBC.

Any political party with 50 or more candidates in the field on nomination day (May 16) will be given one 10-minute broadcast after the 6 p. m. news bulletin. I might insert here that if the Communist Party qualified with 50 or more candidates, it would get free time.

From dissolution day to polling day, BBC programs will exclude items held likely to influence voters other than the allocated party broadcasts.

I might say here that somebody is going to have to do a censoring job to determine that.

Normally political debates, forums, discussions or commentaries, with MP's and other political figures participating, are a regular feature of BBC output. Details of wave lengths on which the general election party political broadcast can be heard in the United States will be issued in due course.

That was dated April 20, 1955.

Do you have anything you wanted to say?

Mr. BAKER. I have nothing further. I would only like to make the observation that the British system of broadcasing is one which is largely controlled by the Government in an absolute monopoly, whereas the broadcasting system in the United States is owned entirely by individual companies competing with each other. And I think that the testimony which has been given before this committee would reveal some interesting comments if the figures on the total amount of time given to political broadcasts in Great Britain were compared with the amount of time that were given to broadcasts by our system during the last election.

I think you have testimony from at least two of the networks already in this record.

Senator CURTIS. And your inference is

Mr. BAKER. There is much more time, I think, at the present, already devoted in the United States than you have indicated was granted by the British broadcasting system.

Senator CURTIS. In Great Britain, do they have just the one broadcasting network?

Mr. BAKER. They have had one until recently, but at the present they are trying to expand it into an additional one. But the information your read related to the single one which has been established a long period of time.

Senator CURTIS. Are there individual stations in Great Britain, which are not a part of the British Broadcasting Corp.?

Mr. BAKER. Up until now it has been a monopoly by the British Broadcasting Co.

Senator CURTIS. Mr. Counsel, would you proceed with any questions you have?

Mr. DUFFY. Mr. Baker, you say that section 315 of the Federal Communications Act refers only to candidates, is that correct?

Mr. BAKER. That is correct.

Mr. DUFFY. Now, then, if a committee or organization or any group of people acquire time on television or radio and use it to influence the election of one man or the other, would the radio or television broadcasting system be required to give equal time to people for opposing parties?

Mr. BAKER. There is no specific provision of law which requires it. However, the Commission had a long time ago adopted the policy that under the public trust which is given to a licensee he has the obligation to serve the public interest, and whenever he carries material with respect to any controversial issue-and certainly a political election is usually a controversial issue-he must fairly present the matter. The Commission has held that it is within his discretion as to how he shall present it.

Therefore, if a committee or other group of individuals are permitted to speak who are not in themselves candidates, there would be an obligation upon the station itself to provide that the other side of that issue be presented-they would have the discretion as to how they would present it.

In other words, they would not necessarily have to give the particular candidate an opportunity, but they would have to see that this side of the story was told.

Mr. DUFFY. If the broadcasting system should render a determination that there was nothing in the broadcast that would influence an election or speak for or against a candidate particularly, if they should make that decision themselves and refuse to allow equal opportunity to any group representing the opposition, to whom would such a decision be appealable, the Federal Communications Commission?

Mr. BAKER. Well, those instances that have occurred, at least allegedly, and all complaints have been filed very quickly with the Federal Communications Commission.

The Commission then investigates the matter, and if it concludes that biased material has been broadcast on only one side of a controversial issue they would so inform the licensee. If the licensee did not carry out his obligation, he would then jeopardize his chances of continuing to be a licensee when his renewal came up.

Mr. DUFFY. One more question: What protection would there be to the opposition party in the event such a thing as this happened if one group or organization gave a broadcast on radio or television which definitely favored one party or one candidate, and the broadcasts were made so close to election day that a decision could not be made and enforced by the Federal Communications Commission?

In other words, isn't it possible that a group of people could buy time very close to election day which would be used to influence an election and that the time left before election day would be so short that the opposition party would be unable to speak for its side?

Mr. BAKER. That certainly is a theoretical possibility. We think that basically the Commission has administered this policy for a long enough period of time; that the licensees themselves recognize their obligations and are very careful when they are approaching anything as controversial as a political election to make sure that they have made plans to keep a reasonably balanced program with respect to it.