TV Needs to Join Net Neutrality Fight

Most TV stations have lively local Web sites, offering a continuous flow of headlines, stories, video clips and weather reports.

You have to look no further than Gordon Borrell's last study on local online advertising to understand why.

The study forecasts that total local online ad spending will jump from $8.7 billion last year to $13.1 billion this year.

It's been a sometimes painful process, but broadcasters are beginning to see themselves as more than just broadcasters.

They are now online publishers, competing not only with the sites of the local newspapers and other TV and radio stations, but also the Yellow Pages and other local online directories and search engines.

This is all well and good. Broadcasters need to follow the local audiences and advertisers as they gradually migrate to the Web.

Today, Web revenue is nice addition to broadcasters' top line that helps offset loses in spot advertising. Tomorrow, it could equal or exceed the spot advertising.

So, if broadcasters are Web publishers, they need to start acting like it in Washington. There are a myriad of issues surrounding the Internet and the Web, but the big one is what's come to be called net neutrality.

It a principle that says that last-mile broadband service providers like cable and telephone companies must treat all content and service providers on the Internet equally and not discriminate in the quality of service or pricing.

A lot of Web users, big (as in Google) and small, have been battling to make that principle the law of the land. They've persuaded sympathetic lawmakers to introduce legislation and hold hearings. It's a start.

The question is, is this the NAB's fight? I think it is.

The last thing that a station needs to discover is that its Web site is not loading as quickly or looking as good as that of the local Yellow Pages publisher because the directory publisher cut some kind of deal with the cable company.

Or worse, the station Web site is functioning slower because the local cable company has its own competitive site.

There is also a political upside for NAB.

By backing net neutrality, NAB can win some points where it needs them the most -- among Democrats, who have taken up the cause.

Even if Obama loses, the Democrats will likely continue to control the House and Senate. If they can count broadcasters as allies in the high-profile net neutrality debate, they will be more willing to play ball with them on other contentious issues such as retrans, indecency, must carry, media ownership and localism.

Backing net neutrality may also put NAB is good stead with the FCC. It just spanked Comcast for blocking users' access to peer-to-peer content after the Associated Press caught it in the act last fall.

What's also nice about the issue is that it puts the NAB in a comfortable place -- in opposition to the NCTA and the big cable operators like Comcast. It's almost always true: what's bad for cable must be good for broadcasting (and vice versa).

The net neutrality arguments dovetail nicely with NAB's traditional must-carry advocacy. Just as in must carry, cable companies should not be allowed to act as gatekeepers and bottlenecks, arbitrarily carrying some content and rejecting other.

The NAB has already dipped its toe into the issue. Six year ago, in 46-page comments on an FCC inquiry into "high-speed access to Internet over cable and other facilities," the NAB essentially endorsed the whole idea of net neutrality without actually using the term.

"The failure of the commission to adopt safeguards to prevent the owners of bottleneck facilities from blocking or encumbering the access of unaffiliated service and content providers to consumers will clearly inhibit competition, innovation and consumer choice, and will also produce an uncompetitive broadband marketplace dominated by one, or at best two, gatekeeper platform owners," the NAB comments say.

There is some danger here. Net neutrality is regulation.

And, as every broadcaster should know, once government starts regulating something, it tends never to let go.

In the future, it could tie net neutrality to other things it believes to be the in the best interest of the country like restricting certain kinds of content on the Net. Not a good idea, if you're a red-blooded, freedom-loving American.

Broadcast lobbyists have been following the net neutrality debate over the past few years out of the corner of their eyes.

Perhaps it's time for them to take a direct look at it -- and get involved.

Harry A. Jessell is editor of TVNewsCheck. You may contact him at hajessell@newscheckmedia.com.