Campaigns & Elections' Political Broadcast Manual - March 2008 - (Page 35)

auction-like manner whereby advertisers can continue to preempt each other simply by paying an incrementally higher rate. Thus, a station may not steer a candidate to purchase higher-priced time if it gives commercial advertisers the opportunity to clear merely by paying an increased rate. Local and National Rates Local and national rates are not a valid distinction for purposes of establishing classes of time for LUCs. Therefore, the lower rate controls the calculation of LUCs. Production Facilities, Web Site Advertising, Blogs The LUC applies to purchases of broadcast time and does not apply to the use of a station’s production facilities, website advertising, the mention or provision of blogs or other non-broadcast activities. The station is free to charge its standard commercial rates for any of these facilities, regardless of whether a candidate qualifies for LUCs in the purchase of broadcast time. However, stations may not discriminate against political candidates vis a vis commercial advertisers. For example, if free production of spots is available to commercial advertisers, free production of spots must also be offered to political candidates. If a charge is made for a station website banner, the opposing candidate may not be charged a premium beyond the standard charge. Note from Section XI, below, that production required to add a missing legal element to a broadcast spot, such as a sponsorship tag, may be billed at standard rates. Make-Good Policies A “make-good” is a spot run without charge to compensate for a spot that had been scheduled but was not broadcast due to preemption or a technical problem. It can also represent compensation for failure to deliver guaranteed audience levels during a scheduled broadcast. If a station sells preemptible time on a weekly rotation basis and a make-good happens to run in a normally more expensive rotation period, then it will become the lowest unit rate for that time period. To illustrate, assume a candidate buys three 30-second, $100 spots to run between 6:00 p.m. and 7:00 p.m. sometime Monday through Friday in a given week. Assume further that a $75 commercial spot preempted from an earlier date happens to run at 6:50 p.m. that Friday. This will cause March 2008 « 35 http://www.microtargetmedia.com

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of Campaigns & Elections' Political Broadcast Manual - March 2008

Campaigns & Elections' Political Broadcast Manual - March 2008 Contents Introduction – The Scope of the Political Broadcasting Rules “Legally Qualified” Candidates Reasonable Access “Uses” of Broadcast Facilities Exempt Programs Requests for Equal Opportunities Equal Opportunities Lowest Unit Charges The Disclosure Censorship of Uses Sponsorship Identification Political File Contents Access to the Political File The Fairness Doctrine Political Editorials Personal Attacks Issue Advertising News Distortion Conclusion

Campaigns & Elections' Political Broadcast Manual - March 2008

For optimal viewing of this digital publication, please enable JavaScript and then refresh the page. If you would like to try to load the digital publication without using Flash Player detection, please click here.