Reverend PARKER. I would be very happy to come up and testify on legislation for compulsory hearings.

Senator PASTORE. Thank you very, very much.

(The prepared statement and accompanying material follow :)

STATEMENT OF THE REV. DR. EVERETT C. PARKER, NEW YORK CITY, DIRECTOR OF THE OFFICE OF COMMUNICATION, UNITED CHURCH OF CHRIST

My name is Everett C. Parker. I am director of the Office of Communication of the United Church of Christ. I am also chairman of the Broadcasting and Film Commission of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the U.S.A., but I do not speak for that body here.

The United Church of Christ has a membership in excess of two million. The Church was formed in 1957 through union of two historic Protestant denominations, the Congregational Christian Churches and the Evangelical and Reformed Church. The Office of Communication is charged with the Constitution of the United Church to conduct a ministry in mass communication in behalf of the Church.

The Board of Directors of the Office of Communication has disapproved S. 2004. I report this fact for record purposes only. I am appearing here today solely as a private citizen. I do not speak for the United Church of Christ. I do not represent the Office of Communication of which I am director. The record should show my private status clearly, because a few days after the Office of Communication publicly expressed its opposition to S. 2004 and asked for the opportunity to testify before this Committee, the United Church of Christ received a warning letter from the acting district director of Internal Revenue in New York City. This letter pointed out that contacting a legislative body or supporting or opposing legislation might jeopardize the tax exempt status of the United Church. An identical letter was sent to the National Council of Churches, the only other religious body that had expressed opposition to S. 2004 and asked for time to testify before this Committee. Careful investigation at the time did not reveal any other religious organization that received this letter.

Our attorneys, in reply to the director, pointed out that in the fifteen years of its existence the Office of Communication had never before appeared before a Congressional Committee, either at its own request or by invitation. They also pointed out the following: (1) That it is the function of the Christian Gospel to deal with moral issues, and that S. 2004 poses an acute moral problem. (2) That beginning long before the Office of Communication was created, religious organizations have on numerous occasions appeared before the Senate Commerce Committee to testify on broadcasting legislation, citing 24 such ap pearances. (3) That the broadcasting industry has numerous representatives in attendance at these present hearings and working in support of this proposed legislation whose salaries and fees presumably will be deducted in computing the income taxes of the broadcasters. Any interpretation of the Revenue Act which permits such activities by broadcasters while preventing church bodies and other non-profit organizations from exercising their right to petition the Government would raise serious questions of fairness and doubt as to the constitutionality of the Act. (Copies of the correspondence with the New York acting district director and his superior, the director, are appended to this testimony.)

In spite of the fact that our attorneys have advised the Office of Communication that my appearance here will not result in loss of the exempt status of the United Church of Christ, we have chosen to accept the warning of the New York representatives of the Internal Revenue Service at face value and to forego the opportunity to testify here officially. However, I will be deeply grateful if this Committee, in the course of its investigation into the interests of the broadcasting industry; will also determine by what means the attention of the Internal Revenue Service was directed to the United Church of Christ and the National Council of Churches at the particular time and under the particular circumstances. This episode raises disturbing questions in my mind concerning the functions and activities of the Service.

The Office of Communication is concerned with the public interest in broadcasting. It believes that the American system of broadcasting depends upon active participation of its three partners, the public, the broadcaster, and the government. With this in mind, the Office of Communication has worked to

acquaint representative community groups with their rights and obligations under our broadcasting system, to assist them in evaluating the service rendered by their radio and television stations and to cooperate with station management in seeking improvements in programming wherever necessary.

Attached to this testimony is a pamphlet titled How To Protect Citizen Rights in Television and Radio. It explains the policies of the Office of Communication with regard to broadcasting and the basis upon which it assists the public to obtain the service to which it is entitled.

Over the past decade the Office of Communication has had more experience in helping the public to exercise its rights in broadcasting than has any other organization. On the basis of our experience, we have concluded that the present system of broadcast regulations is not working.

The primary principle of the Communications Act is that a licensee is granted the right to use public property-perhaps the greatest natural resource at our disposal to use this property temporarily, and is required to account regularly to the public for its use. Over the years the Federal Communications Commission has had neither the will nor the resources to call its licensees to accoun't in accordance with the Act. The FCC in 35 years has never once refused to renew the license of a station because it flagrantly failed to serve the tastes, needs and desires of the community in which it was licensed, or because it permitted manipulation of groups and individuals by unscrupulous advertisers, or because it engaged in vicious discrimination against a voiceless minority, as we found to be the case in Jackson, Mississippi. In fact, the FCC has never revoked a license or even seriously punished a station, except in a few cases of overt, blatant fraud, dishonesty or other criminal behavior. And even here, this Committee should bear in mind that a scant three months ago, on October 3, the FCC renewed the license of WIFE, Indianapolis, Ind., although in judging the station's operation of a contest, the Commission majority specifically stated: ". we agree with the Hearing Examiner that WIFE's actions with respect thereto constituted a fraud."

In fact, the FCC has attributed to the broadcasting industry a degree of perfection which even broadcasters are heistant to claim for themselves. Certainly, it is a perfection found nowhere else in American life. Nothing in the FCC's record suggests that the broadcasting industry needs protection. Quite the contrary!

Even the Congress has seemed to accept the FCC evaluation of broadcast service. Though possessed of the power, Congress has lacked the will to regulate broadcasting in behalf of the public interest. And members of the public either are unaware of their right to better service or lack of the resources of knowledge, money and organization to challenge significant numbers of licensees. For this and other reasons I will set forth, my colleagues and I, who are associated through the Office of Communication of the United Church of Christ, believe that S. 2004 poses a substantial threat to the American system of broadcasting and even to the American way of life. We are unequivocally opposed to this measure.

It is important that this Committee, all of the members of the Senate and the American people understand the purpose of this bill and the true issues involved in its provisions.

S. 2004 in effect eliminates the only effective residue of the American system of free enterprise in broadcasting, because this bill would abolish the competing application as an instrument of contesting renewal of a license.

We do not ourselves use competing applications. We do not feel that denial of a station's license is a desirable solution to deficient broadcast service, except in the most serious cases. Rather, we encourage local citizens and broadcasters to confer and to work out between them a service that will benefit both the community and the licensee. However, it is essential that the last recourse of denial of license be kept available, to be employed whenever the public interest so requires.

The competing application is an instrument to motivate groups in the private sector to expand the funds necessary to evaluate the performance of a licensee, and, if necessary, to challenge renewal of his license. S. 2004 does not make clear the standards the FCC must apply in acting on renewal applications. The bill will probably guarantee that licenses will be renewed as long as the service being rendered is minimally preferable to no service at all. Under this bill, substandard licensees who would be vulnerable in a competitive hearing are immune from challenge.

It has been said that S-2004 will rmove a "sword of Damocles" which hangs over the head of broadcasters. Our experience shows that if there is such a Sword of Damocles it does not hang by a slender thread but rests securely in the hands of an FCC which is grimly determined to use it only to fight off members of the public who seek justice in the administration and enforcement of the Communications Act. Can there be a more outrageous example of the Commission's disinclination to regulate than the WLBT case? There the public called the Commission's attention to the grossest form of racial discrimination by a television licensee. Only after a landmark Circuit Court decision granting standing to the public did the FCC grudgingly hold a hearing on the serious charges leveled against WLBT. In the face of overwhelming evidence of violations of the Communications Act, the FCC voted to renew the WLBT license. It required a follow-up decision of the Circuit Court to reverse that action and vacate the license. In that historic decision Chief Justice Burger (then Circuit Judge) wrote:

"The record now before us leaves us with a profound concern over the entire handling of this case following the remand to the Commission. The impatience with the Public Intervenors, the hostility toward their efforts to satisfy a surprisingly strict standard of proof, plain errors in rulings and findings lead us, albeit reluctantly, to the conclusion that it will serve no useful purpose to ask the Commission to reconsider the Examiner's actions and its own Decision and Order under a correct allocation of the burden of proof. The administrative conduct reflected in this record is beyond repair."

If the past be any indication, the broadcasters have nothing to fear from the Commission and it is folly to suggest that the Commission will protect the public interest without constant prodding. Moreover, it is likely, as a practical matter, that local groups are uniquely equipped to evaluate the performance of their local stations in the first instance.

There should be no pretense that S. 2004 is designed to protect marginal stations, locally owned, serving local communities. No competing applications have been filed against such stations. It is the giants of the industry who are frightened the princelings who control communications empires with resources and power greater than that of many substantial governments. For it is against a mere handful of the most profitable and powerful VHF television stations that competing applications have been filed.

In recent years the FCC has indicated concern with the excessive concentration of power in broadcasting and the other communications media on both a local and national level. In the case of WHDH in Boston, a license was awarded to a competing applicant primarily on the grounds that WHDH had excessive control of the mass media in the Boston area and that it had abused its power while it was a provisional licensee.

Although the Commission had indicated a concern over excessive concentration of control, with the exception of WHDH, this concern has not been reflected in a failure to renew licenses; and in WHDH the Commission has indicated that this is only one of the considerations to be taken into account when judging competitive applications.

Perhaps encouraged by the WHDH case, challenges have been filed against a handful of other stations. Most of these cases involve challenges to stations in top markets, stations which are owned by communications conglomerates or combination industrial-communications conglomerates.

It appears to us that the principal purpose of S. 2004 is to protect these conglomerates from attack for in fact no other group is even remotely threatened.

The degree to which such concentrations of power exist is well known to this Committee. We believe you should be considering ways to eliminate rather than to perpetuate them. The communications conglomerates include ownership of AM, FM, and television stations and networks, book publishing companies, national magazines, CATV systems, news services, motion picture production and distribution and program syndication operations. The industrial-communications conglomerates are combinations which include in addition vast industrial enterprises. In the case of some of the larger of such enterprises, such as AVCO, RCA, Westinghouse, and RKO General, the industrial side is heavily engaged in defense work and other government contracts. Nine years ago President Eisenhower in a parting message to the American people warned against the power and influence of the military-industrial complex. Members of this complex own some of the most important stations throughout the United States.

These immense concentrations of power in private hands are undesirable. But such concentrations of power in the mass communications media present an added, very special threat to our way of life. The media sit astride our entire system of government. They comprise the primary means of communications between those who govern or seek to govern and those who are governed. The image which each member of each of our legislatures and each of our elected officials presents to his constituency is in large part dependent upon the manner and the frequency with which he is presented (not only during an election campaign but during his term of office) in the newspapers, the magazines, and especially, on the radio and television stations serving his community. In ways so subtle as to be virtually impossible of proof, the manner in which he is presented by the media will determine his ability to be reelected. The power of these combinations may well grow to the point (if it has not already reached that point with S. 2004) where as a practical matter our elected officials will be so dependent upon them that regulation will be out of the question.

A telling example of the power of the communications industry is seen in the 1952 amendment to the Communications Act. Prior to 1952, when a licensee proposed to sell his franchise, the door was open to competing applications. The FCC had the opportunity to choose the applicant which, in its best judgment, would best serve the community. In 1952 the broadcasters sought and obtained an amendment which did the same thing for transfer proceedings as S. 2004 would do for renewal proceedings. It provided that there could be no competing applications in connection with a proposed transfer unless the transferee was first rejected by the FCC. Many communications conglomerates, such as RKO General, Taft Broadcasting Company and Metromedia Corporation were built up by purchases which in all probability could not have been made without the help of the 1952 amendment.

The trend toward concentration of power can be expected to continue. In the past few years we have seen an attempt of Transamerica Corporation to acquire Metromedia Corporation and an attempt by ITT to acquire the American Broadcasting Company. Although these proposed acquisitions were eventually abandoned, it is questionable whether they would have been prohibited by the rules of the FCC. In fact, the acquisition of American Broadcasting Company by ITT was approved by the Commission despite its great concern over the conglomerates and the express opposition of the Justice Department.

One of the reasons the ABC-ITT transfer was approved by the Commission was the existence of the 1952 amendment. The industry now boldly demands that all licenses be renewed unless the existing licensees are worse than no stations at all. S. 2004 will as a practical matter make broadcast licenses the perpetual monopoly of those who now dominate our tastes and thought processes.

Our experience has shown us that the public alone cannot police the entire broadcasting industry. We have assisted representative public groups to evaluate broadcasting in a number of communities and to file petitions to deny license renewal against four stations in the past five years. Each of these efforts took thousands of dollars, endless hours of staff time for research and field organization, dedicated legal counsel and months and years of patient persistence. The public's pocketbook can finance only a few such efforts. Other means are needed to insure the public of its full measure of service from radio and television stations.

The competitive application serves a vital function in the present regulatory scheme. In recent months it has served as an incentive for various groups to expend the funds necessary to investigate station performance, evaluate community needs and to oppose renewal of licenses.

Under the present system, license review can be initiated only by the FCC or by private parties willing and able to spend the large sums necessary.

To the extent that Vice President Agnew's recent speech can be viewed as an attempt to warn the industry to be more solicitous of the Government's point of view or face what comes, S. 2004 furnishes no additional protection to broadcasters. The Administration's recent and future appointees to the FCC will have ample opportunity to raise the issues with which the Administration seems to be concerned. S. 2004 does not change that.

However if S. 2004 is passed, the possibility of private opposition, the protection of local rights will virtually be eliminated. Only the Government will have the ability to initiate effective review. Consequently, broadcasters might be inclined to respond affirmatively to warnings of governmental discipline of they do not mend their ways.

A great deal has been said already about the hazards competitive applications pose to the broadcaster. Past experience teaches that the risks are almost nonexistent.

The proponents of S. 2004 speak as though there should be no risks whatsoever for the broadcaster. There are risks and responsibilities attached to every public franchise.

In effect, the competing application serves a self-policing function. The possibility of competing applications stands as a constant reminder to broadcasters that any laxity on their part is a sign of vulnerability to the competition. If a challenge is mounted by a competitor, the public is relieved of the burden of a petition to deny and the costs of bringing about necessary change are borne by the business interests who are best able to pay them.

Even if every broadcast license were given careful scrutiny every three years by the FCC, still there would be a need for competitive applications for existing radio and television facilities. Both petitions to deny and normal licensing processes require the FCC to find an existing broadcaster completely without merit before withholding license renewal. There is no alternative option in the picture. This bill deprives the public of receiving "better" service from another prospective broadcaster until the FCC has found the present broadcaster so bad that the public would, in theory, be better off with no service at all.

But what constitutes adequate public service in broadcasting is not something fixed. Rather, it is relative to such factors as the needs of the public in a particular community, station size and the revenues derived from the market served. Take for example the case of a community in which the only daily newspaper is under common ownership with the only local television outlet. There are many such communities in the United States. Perhaps the market is such that the station can only be operated effectively by a licensee with other media interests in the community. Certainly joint ownership is preferable to elimination of the station or operation by a group that is financially unstable. However, if there are others ready, willing and able to operate the station, it might well be more in the public interest to separate ownership of the newspaper and television station. There is a third area where competitive applications may be a crucial factor in preserving American society. It is essential that minority voices be heard if democracy is to survive. For more than a decade substantial minorities with important issues to debate have been forced to take to the streets, and even to engage in violence, to gain their rights of access to mass media of communication, especially radio and television. For example, even today, employment of blacks by stations and networks and representation of blacks on the air fall far short of being either fair or adequate.

No black can view S. 2004 as other than a deliberate attempt to deny his people access to the air by squeezing them out, absolutely and forever, from ownership of stations on the basis of ability and willingness to provide a superior broadcasting service.

In places where the needs of minority groups, such as blacks, are not served, or where existing service is inadequate, it should not be necessary for prospective applicants representing such groups to gain access to a public channel only by means of purchasing it from the monopolist who has ignored their interests. Spanish-speaking Americans, Indians, youth, conservatives and liberals alike, are among the minorities who need, want and have a right to access to the air, including ownership of stations in those places where they do a better job of serving their own interests and the interests of the public at large than do current licensees.

S. 2004 would leave no room for new ideas, new movements, unforeseen developments. It would freeze the spectrum forever. For the good of this nation, where broadcast facilities are in the hands of licensees unwilling or unable to serve minorities or to rise to new challenges and new needs, the competitive application should be available to test the existing structure.

As noted earlier, we feel that the present regulatory system has not been effective. However, we remain convinced that a system of private commercial broadcasting, subject to effective government regulation is best suited to the needs of this country. It should be recognized, however, that this is the only country that has so fully committed its broadcasting to private competitive enterprise and has not retained a major portion of its airwaves for public or government use. There were, of course, alternatives open to those who drafted the Communications Act of 1934. For example, it was suggested in the Wagner/Hatfield Amendment and later in Section 307 (c) of the Communications Act that a portion