The Challengers

A TV or radio license has long seemed a permanent possession for most broadcasters. Though the law required periodic review of a station's performance, its right to continue using the air waves was rarely questioned, and the Federal Communications Commission tended to rubber-stamp most license renewals. No more. To the dismay of the broadcasting industry, citizen groups and rival commercial interests are posing increasingly numerous and serious challenges to the near perpetual license.

Petitions against more than 100 stations are pending with the FCC, the biggest number the overworked commission has ever had. The complaints vary, but they center mostly on allegations of inadequate programming for minorities or discrimination in hiring or promotions. The United Church of Christ, a pioneer in seeking better treatment of minorities by broadcasters, currently has seven complaints awaiting action by the FCC. They charge discriminatory policies by stations from Bakersfield, Calif., to Syracuse, N.Y.

The type of discrimination under attack was significantly broadened in a petition filed earlier this month against

New York City's WABC-TV, flagship station of the ABC-TV network. According to the complaint by the National Organization of Women, the station not only discriminates against women in employment practices but is antifemale in its basic approach, from programming to commercials. WABC'S local news, said NOW, is often given over to such "frivolous items" as women's pancake contests or stories about cheerleaders. Added to the station's own antiwomen programs, NOW charges, are commercials that reinforce "sex stereotypes" by showing women spending their days happily waxing floors or getting their laundry whiter than white.

Friends of the Earth, an environmental group, has filed complaints against three New York TV stations for refusing to counter automobile and gasoline advertising with ads that extol mass transit and show the evils of auto pollution. The environmentalists have argued, with support from a federal appeals court, that stations must run such commercials under the fairness doctrine. But most broadcasters are resisting on the grounds that such requirements are a threat to the autonomy of commercial broadcasting.

Victories. Despite the best efforts of the broadcasters--and often of the industry-dominated FCC--the challengers have won several major victories. After a petition by another commercial group, the license for Boston's WHDH-TV was taken away from the company that also owned the Herald Traveler newspaper. As a result, the Herald Traveler, which depended on TV revenues, will cease publication and sell its assets to the Hearst newspaper chain. In an out-of-court settlement, Mexican-American groups engineered some revisions in Time Inc.'s proposed sale of its five TV stations to McGraw-Hill. The Chicano organizations extracted pledges from McGraw-Hill to show more concern for minority problems, and they caused one station, WOOD-TV in Grand Rapids, Mich., to be excluded from the sale, arguing that the deal violated FCC guidelines in giving McGraw-Hill too great a concentration in the top 50 TV markets.

Broadcasters are now prodding Congress to pass new laws that would make such challenges more difficult. "As the system is now rigged, it invites abuse," editorialized Broadcasting magazine, the industry's trade journal, last week. "The end will be regulatory anarchy if Congress doesn't step in." Replies FCC Commissioner Nicholas Johnson, who opposes the commission majority and encourages challengers: "The broadcasters just want to be left alone, and I think this is intolerable. It turns out that the only people they're really serving are the advertisers and the big businessmen who are playing the tune. If the FCC won't make them come up with good programming, what the hell is the objection to letting the people do the job?"

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