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FCC and No Urban Dictates
This is a story that had been under my radar until it was discussed on my morning radio show (Armstrong and Getty for those in Northern California).
It seems that for many years there has been something called Do Not Buy in radio advertising. The basic concept being that when a company hires an advertiser to buy radio ads they would include “Do Not Buy” for certain types of stations or for certain shows.
For example in the early 90′s a company like Starbucks would be gearing their ads to urban professional types. So they would issue a DNB for shows like Rush Limbaugh on the theory that most of their customers are liberal and to buy time on Rush would hurt business. By the same token a gun maker would probably want to avoid buying ads on Keith Olbermann.
This policy also had ethnic aspects. If you were trying to sell a CD collection of “The Best of Pat Boone” you’d probably not want to buy time on a Hip Hop station simply because Hip Hop listeners wouldn’t be likely to buy Boone. If you had a new Dr Dre CD to sell you’d want to skip time on a country music station.
All of this seems to me to make perfect sense. If you want to sell a product then you buy ads on stations that market to your likely customer base. It’s not that you have anything against hip hop or country music listeners, just that you go to where the money is.
But the FCC has issued a policy that says stations have to reject such policies on thr grounds that they are racist.
I am quite sure that some of the people who issued a no urban order did so on prejudice grounds but I suspect the vast majority of them did so on common sense economic grounds. Money is money and if advertising exclusively on minority stations would make you more profit then the most prejudiced businessman in the world is likely to make the buy.
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7 Responses to “FCC and No Urban Dictates”
Hopefully, someone will challenge this in court. Targeted advertising is pretty solid science, and I rather enjoy figuring out a show's audience based on the advertising.
I agree with this column. The spirit of the law has, I think, good intent, and it looks like legitimate targeting of gender- or race-specific products (like Spanish-language concert tickets or women's health products) are specifically excluded from this law. However, it's going to be nearly impossible to distinguish between targeting a market for a legitimate reason, and doing so just because you don't want “urban/Spanish” people showing up at your store and scaring away the rich white folks. I don't see how the spirit of the law — however well intentioned — will be enforceable.
Hi Prof Ellwood,
Having read the link, though not the actual regulation, I'm not convinced the reg is not as draconian as may first appear. From what I can tell it bans advertsing restrictions done for discriminatory purposes; it does not ban such restrictions based on legitimate, non-discriminatory, rationale. Targeted marketing is still allowed, and the linked article gives several examples. Seems to me the regs are akin to anti-redlining regs in the housing industry.
All that notwithstanding, the FCC regulatory function should still be rescinded. They (it) constantly fiddle with restrictions on free speech as “licensing conditions”. Wardrobe malfunction fine anyone? Five second delay on live shows anyone? Let them sell licenses and air based band space. Leave the rest to the consumer to decide for him/herself.
Thanks for checking into it. Your expertise is appreciated and your point was well said.
Thanks, Prof. I also liked your game of trying to figure out who watches or listens based on the advertisers and plan to have a little fun with it at home.
The problem is the language is way too fungible. As always, who decides what is politically correct targeted advertising vs politically incorrect discriminatory advertising? And how do you (the advertiser) keep up with the changing standards of the definitions each time there is any regime change at the FCC?
How do you prevent them from coming after you for advertising that was considered proper that now is not, but they apply some new criteria retroactively? There nothing is in the language to stop that. As the law and statutes do not change, only interpretations, there is no barrier to doing just that.
Schady,
Please refer to the second paragraph of my comment where I (albeit indirectly) offer approval to the idea of launching a mortar attack on FCC headquarters.
Of course, the new regs will cause broadcasters and advertisers to overreact out of an excess of caution. The most serious flaw in this type of attempted regulation is its chilling effect, as those who may be impacted attempt to avoid potential sanctions. As roro said, it will be almost impossible to enforce, which is another reason to avoid this kind of stuff.