AFTER THE NASTINESS of the 2002 campaign season, television might seem like an unlikely place to look for political reform. But it’s precisely because of the cost and prevalence of campaign commercials and the tube’s primary place in our popular culture that campaign-reform advocates see television as the perfect place to enact change.

The Alliance for Better Campaigns (ABC), a Washington, DC–based nonpartisan group that advocates for political campaigns that inform voters and increase their participation in the political process, is pushing a proposal that would force broadcasters to offer free air time to political candidates before elections — in addition to increasing political coverage overall. Proponents say the idea is the next frontier in campaign-finance reform.

The concept is hardly radical. The honorary co-chairs of the four-year-old alliance are Jimmy Carter, Gerald Ford, and Walter Cronkite. A monograph outlining the group’s proposal includes expressions of philosophical support from a range of political and business leaders. (There is some unintended irony in including this quote from Bill Clinton: "Candidates should be able to talk to voters based on the strength of their ideas, not the size of their pocketbooks." Until George W. Bush surpassed him this election season, Clinton held the distinction of being the politician who’d raised the most political donations in one night.) Publications ranging from the Economist and the New York Times to the San Diego Union-Tribune and the Memphis Commercial Appeal have given the idea their stamp of approval. And Arizona senator John McCain, who has co-sponsored legislation that would mandate free air time for candidates, notes that television and radio, unlike the print media, use public assets — the broadcast airwaves — to function. "When they get a license, they sign a piece of paper that says they will act in the ‘public interest,’" McCain said in 1999. "It seems to me that the public interest is clearly that they should ... provide free television time for candidates."

On its face, the idea seems pretty reasonable. Nearly every democracy in the world has some kind of mandate for free television time during campaigns. Broadcasters can afford it: profit margins of 30 percent, 40 percent, and even 50 percent are common in broadcasting, according to Paul Taylor, the former Washington Post reporter who serves as president of the ABC. And, since the Communications Act of 1934 was enacted, broadcasters’ free and exclusive use of the airwaves has also been conditioned on their agreement to function as public trustees.

The ABC’s free-air proposal (spelled out on the group’s Web site, www.bettercampaigns.org) would require all radio and television licensees to air a minimum of two hours of weekly candidate discussion, at least half during prime time or drive time, in the month before an election. It would also set up a voucher system in which general-election candidates for the US House and Senate who had raised a threshold amount of contributions in small donations would receive direct grants good for campaign commercials. In addition, each of the two major political parties would receive large block grants of broadcast vouchers for use by the parties or individual candidates in different markets. Minor parties that reached qualifying thresholds would receive smaller blocks of broadcast vouchers. The voucher system would be financed by a spectrum-usage fee equal to 0.05 percent of the gross annual revenue of the nation’s broadcasters, an amount estimated at $640 million in 2000. (The McCain bill calls for the fee not to exceed one percent of broadcast-license holders’ gross annual revenue.)

A quick look at what just happened — campaign-wise — shows how such a system could improve political runs for office. Candidates, political parties, and interest groups poured an unprecedented $1 billion into political advertising this year, more than four times the amount spent in 1980, according to the ABC. And thanks to closely contested races in Massachusetts and New Hampshire, the Greater Boston television market sold 41,154 political commercials, the most in the nation, for a combined $37 million jackpot.

It’s bad enough that the cost of television advertising precludes candidates who aren’t rich or well-financed from running competitive campaigns (ABC estimates that $250,000 is the entry threshold for effective challengers for seats in the US House of Representatives). But even as some broadcasters exploit the money to be made during a heated campaign (a Brigham University study of 17 competitive congressional races in 2000 found that the average cost of a 30-second political commercial tripled from the end of August through the end of October that year), we continue to see a reduction in meaningful political coverage. Voters tuning in to local news around the US, for example, were over four times more likely to see political ads than nonpartisan news stories this year, according to the Norman Lear Center at the University of Southern California’s Annenberg School for Communication. And the Project for Excellence in Journalism, an affiliate of Columbia University’s Graduate School of Journalism, recently found that rather than rising to the challenge of helping explain the post–September 11 world, "local TV news continues instead to be a surrogate rubbernecker, taking us to crime scenes, murder trials, and traffic accidents, where we can do little but gawk."

The question now is whether mandated free air time will ever come to pass. And if it does, whether it will work.

IT’S HARDLY surprising that the notion of providing mandatory free air time would be anathema to the broadcasting industry. Media observers give the concept little hope of moving forward. " I would say that calling it an uphill battle is a vast understatement, " says Alex S. Jones, director of the Joan Shorenstein Center on the Press, Politics and Public Policy at Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government. " Campaign advertising is one of the most profitable aspects of being in the business of television, and I think they [broadcasters] will go to great lengths to protect that turf, always on the basis of free speech. In this case, it just so happens that free speech lines their pockets. I would give it [the free-air-time proposal] virtually no chance whatsoever. "

Indeed, judging by the way Congress was convinced to double television-license holders’ existing allotment of broadcast spectrum in 1996 — a multi-billion-dollar giveaway to aid the move toward digital technology — the industry seems to get what it wants. Take, for example, a 1998 free-air-time proposal from the Clinton White House. The Clinton administration made it clear that it wanted a 22-member advisory panel formed to update the public-interest obligations of broadcasters in the digital age to devise a free-air-time plan. What the panel came up with was a much-watered-down version of the ABC’s proposal: a recommendation that television stations air at least five minutes a night of candidate-centered discourse in the month before elections. Aside from a small number of exceptions, however, the nation’s 1300 television stations ignored the recommendation, and the typical station aired just 45 seconds a night of candidate-centered discourse in the run-up to the 2000 election, according to a Lear Center study.

The National Association of Broadcasters (NAB), which represents broadcasters before Congress, federal agencies, and the courts, not only insists that television already does its part to inform voters about the issues, but it rejects assertions that the public owns the airwaves. " The bottom line is that while the government may be justified in its power to allocate spectrum, someone else must provide the money, technology, and expertise to make the spectrum valuable, " NAB contends in a position paper on its Web site, www.nab.org. " Broadcasters have paid for the spectrum they use through billions of dollars in resources to develop the free, over-the-air broadcasting service to the American public. "

It also maintains that viewers don’t even want improvements in how television covers campaigns. The NAB recently rolled out a survey of 799 registered voters, which found that 71 percent of respondents opposed government-mandated air time for candidates. Even worse, 43 percent of respondents believe local broadcasters are offering " too much time " in covering elections and 40 percent think the current coverage is " about the right amount. " Says NAB president Edward O. Fritts, " We encourage local stations to freely provide comprehensive coverage, and this poll demonstrates that voters believe broadcasters are doing just that. "

Beyond that, the broadcasting industry contends that such a requirement would violate its First Amendment right to free speech and Fifth Amendment protection against governmental " taking " of its property without just compensation. The ABC, however, cites other precedents, particularly a 1969 case in which the Supreme Court ruled that it is " the right of the viewers and listeners, not the right of the broadcasters, which is paramount, " when their respective First Amendment rights come into conflict. Regardless, the legal issue seems unlikely to come to a head anytime soon. The next battlefield is the Senate, where Senators McCain, Russell Feingold, and Richard Durbin plan to reintroduce next year the free-air-time proposal that they first unveiled in October.

Opponents also say the proposal would make things worse by increasing the number of political ads through the voucher system, and even some who are sympathetic to the concept consider it flawed. Without a doubt, there are candidates who prefer to communicate in the conventional 30-second commercials, rather than in longer " free air " segments. " Free air time is something you cannot give away, because the candidates don’t want it, " asserts Emily Rooney, host of WGBH’s Greater Boston and former director of political coverage for the Fox Network, citing how Clinton himself and former senator Bob Dole rejected Fox’s offer of free air time during the 1996 presidential campaign.

However, one of the clear benefits of the free-air-time proposal is that it would boost those candidates who would otherwise struggle to raise money and be heard by the broadcast audience. Free air time wouldn’t create a level playing field, but it could help make political races more competitive.