A screenshot from one of Save Nashville Now's media campaign
Lawyers for Metro and the Davidson County Election Commission are in their second day of hearings in chancery court to decide how much of anti-tax group 4 Good Government’s amendment will get on the July 27 ballot — but the airtime war over the initiative has already begun.
Save Nashville, a group of local civic, business and church leaders, has made the first part of what will eventually be a $300,000-plus ad buy on local television. The spots, titled “Education Cuts” and “First Responder Cuts,” began airing on news broadcasts on Monday, and they highlight what they argue will be devastating reductions in education, fire, police and EMS spending.
4 Good Government, meanwhile, has yet to begin a campaign in favor of their proposals. Sources close to the campaigns tell Pith that Americans for Prosperity — a Koch Brothers-backed group — and others will likely jump into the fray, but not until questions about the constitutionality of a proposed property tax cap and rollback of last year’s property tax increase are determined.
Getting onto the air before Chancellor Russell Perkins hands down his decision — he has said that he would render a verdict by June 18 — gives Save Nashville an advantage in setting the messaging for the election.
Data for the ad buys is available via the Federal Communication Commission’s website. As part of their licensing agreement to broadcast over federally owned airwaves, the FCC sets disclosure requirements so that citizens can see who is spending money to influence state and federal elections. It’s a form of transparency that benefits everyone.
When Pith began compiling the disclosure reports this morning, however, the reports for WSMV (Channel 4) were not on the FCC’s site. Thinking it was an oversight, Pith emailed the station for the order, which details when ads are bought throughout a station’s schedule. WSMV station manager Steve Watt, who returned to Nashville in April from NBC-affiliate KSHB in Kansas City, tells Pith, “The reason why the order is not posted on the site is because FCC rules don’t require stations to post orders for local issues; only their NAB form.”
When Pith pointed out that all of the other stations had disclosed the Save Nashville buys — and that he runs a news organization that demands transparency and accountability from others — Watt didn’t budge.
“When we post the order, it allows the competing stations to see our pricing,” Watt says. “We’re in a competitive business. We’re not going to reveal that unless required like in federal elections.”
First of all, if WSMV continues to take this position, it will fly in the face of every previous local election in which the station disclosed the same information. On the FCC site now, you can find all of the station’s 2019 local disclosures, which included time and rate information.
But second, the information is not that hard to find. Every station’s sales staff and all of the advertising firms in town already possess the rate cards for the broadcast stations. The ratings books from recent periods all show the same thing: WTVF (NewsChannel 5) is the clear market leader, based in part on CBS’ strength in prime time; WKRN (Channel 2) is the clear runner-up, having supplanted WSMV years ago and even challenging and supplanting WTVF for early news broadcasts; and WZTV (Fox 17) is behind the other three.
The rates that Watt is concerned will be public are as follows: For a late newscast (10 p.m. or 9 p.m. for Fox), WTVF charges $1,200 for a 30-second ad followed by WSMV ($750), WKRN ($700) and WZTV ($600). For the 5 p.m. newscast (5:30 p.m. on Fox), WKRN charges $1,200 for a 30-second ad, followed by WTVF ($800), WSMV ($800) and WZTV ($400). Everyone who cares about these rates already knows them, and there is no competitive advantage to hiding this from the public.
If it seems hypocritical for Watt to send his WSMV reporters out to demand transparency from local campaigns and government officials and then have the station fail to disclose things that they will already report in state and federal races, that’s because it is.
