You know what worries me more than artificial entities being able to do political ads at will?

[Commie Pinko Dirtbag]

The fact that media outlets are able to refuse ads on a whim on the flimsiest excuse, whenever their corporate masters don't like the ideas advertised.

If you ask me, ad space commerce should be heavily regulated so:

- The owner of the space-time (billboard, TV slot etc) can't renege anybody who pays the advertised price and reserves an available slot
- The eventual penalties for airing obscene material are applied solely upon the advertiser
- Preemptively blocking an ad on a bogus obscenity allegation carries even stiffer penalties than airing obscene material
- And all of the above includes pay TV and radio

Thoughts?

[onenote]

1. should those rules apply to advertising on sites like DU?

[Commie Pinko Dirtbag]

2. I'm inclined to not include websites in this. -nt

[yurbud]

3. there are an unlimited number of websites, but a finite number of broadcast airwaves

and usually only ONE cable company that has a line into your house with a monopoly exemption. Since the public grants them use of those airwaves and that monopoly, we have the right to demand certain things as part of our payment.

[onenote]

4. actually, there is no "monopoly" exemption for cable

Exclusive franchises were barred by federal law in 1992; while local governments are not compelled to grant a second franchise, many want to and, with the entry of Verizon and ATT into the cable space, many have. In addition, the same networks that offer advertising are available from DirecTV and Dish and, increasingly, on the web -- so how do you come up with a rational distinction that regulates the advertising on ESPN or CNN when they are on cable (or satellite) but doesn't regulate them on the web? Same for newspapers. Ads in the paper? Ads on websites? How do you distinguish?

The OP didn't limit is proposal to the "broadcast airwaves" -- it referred to "media outlets" generally and specifically to "billboards" and "Pay tv and radio. If an ad on Lost on ABC is regulated, should that ad be regulated when ABC puts Lost on the web? If a radio station simulcasts it broadcasts on the web should its advertising on the web be regulated while a non-broadcast music channel is unregulated?

[yurbud]

7. how do you think satellite signals get into your house, telepathically?

they use part of the broadcast spectrum.

Any form of internet communication is different in that people have access to an unlimited number of other sources. Newspapers are the same. Even if there is only one newspaper in your town, you could easily buy another at any newsstand.

You call it a franchise, I call it a monopoly. While there are legal distinctions between the two, as a practical matter, the ways for broadcast media to enter your house are finite and allocated by the government.

[onenote]

8. how do you think wireless Internet gets to you?

And since a city can (and under recent fcc rulings almost must) grant multiple franchises, and since there are two satellite services offering a competing product, I think you need to revisit your concept of "monopoly".

And your distinction between newspapers and cable is rather strange in the context of regulating advertising. The ads on "cable" for the most part are sold not by the cable company but by the individual channels - dozens and dozens of them -- that are carried. If an ad can't get on one of those channels it can reach its audience through another one. On the other hand, newspapers reach far more limited audiences and if an advertiser can't reach that audience its unlikely that another paper serving that same community will. The idea that because a paper in Milwaukee sells an ad is small comfort to someone in Odessa TX whose paper doesn't sell it.

Finally, what is your response to the fact that websites include websites for newspapers and broadcasters and cable networks. What is the rationale for telling a pay cable network what it must carry in the way of advertising on its network but not what it can run as ads on its website?

[Lance_Boyle]

10. Satellite does not use the 'broadcast spectrum'

or "public airwaves" at all.

[PeaceNikki]

5. That would go both ways?

Including the Prop H8, anti-choice, birther, etc?

I dunno about that.

[Commie Pinko Dirtbag]

6. Don't those place ads at will already?

Anyway, I'm open to discussion on which media outlets should be subject to such rules and which shouldn't.

On one extreme, accepting a conservative political ad for the Super Bowl halftime and not accepting a similarly political liberal one is something I have trouble declaring anything other than censorship.

On another extreme, I don't think Free Republic should be prevented from blocking liberal ads on their site.

I don't have it all cut and dried in my mind, this is just an embryo of an idea.

[Blue_Tires]

9. in grad school, our college newspaper had a long history of

controversial ad submissions...after some internal debate, they were almost always approved...