In 1997, President Bill Clinton tabbed me to co-chair a Presidential Advisory Committee on the Public Interest Obligations of Digital Television Broadcasters, to report to Vice President Al Gore. Ever since the Telecommunications Act of 1934, broadcasters (then radio, later television), given the gift of free airwaves from the public, had pledged in return to act in the public interest. Airwaves worth billions, for free. But in the late 1990s, technology had changed the nature of television—the digital era meant we were moving from stations and networks with one venue to having dozens, the advent of hundreds of channels, and a need to take a new look, in a new era, at how the transition to digital television would uphold or potentially erode the public benefits of free, local, over-the-air broadcasting.

With a commission having a combination of public interest advocates, experts, and broadcasters, we went through an extensive process of hearings and research. We focused on the nature of new and emerging technologies, closed captioning and the broader needs of the disability community, the political sphere, educational needs, children’s programming, minority ownership of stations, and more. We deputized the brilliant lawyer and public intellectual Cass Sunstein to draft a new set of public interest obligations to fit the new era.

Broadcasters, on our committee and beyond, starting with the National Association of Broadcasters (which attacked me even before we were actually in business), crowed about their vast commitment to the public interest, which mostly consisted of a huge inflation of the value of their public service announcements, which largely ran in the wee hours of the morning, and their charitable activities that were often about marketing themselves.

Our mandate was to try to achieve consensus, if not unanimity, to get broadcasters and the public interest community to find common ground, including on issues like campaign finance reform. It looked very promising at the start. But in the end, consensus meant watering down our proposals. The broadcasters insisted that a new code of conduct was not necessary; they would act voluntarily. They pledged to abide by the gist of our recommendations. An empty pledge, as it turned out.

When it came to the broadcasting of politics and elections, we decided to ask for a very small commitment, but one beyond what nearly all local broadcasters had done. That was to commit to airing five minutes of political matter a night for the 30 nights before a national election. We did not ask for anything specific—they could do mini-debates; give candidates for different offices, including local ones with no opportunities to do paid advertising, a minute to get a free message across; do segments on the views and positions of candidates; or do something even more creative. We did not ask them to do a single five-minute segment; they........

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