New Bill Encourages Donation Of Stations To Nonprofit Groups

Responding to complaints from constituents who are frustrated with today's corporate radio, Rep. Robert Andrews, D-N.J., has introduced a bill that would change federal tax laws to encourage station owners to donate radio stations to nonprofit arts corporations.

Andrews says the bill will help support nonprofit and performing arts organizations, as well as religious institutions. Under his proposal, the station owner would get a tax write-off equal to 125% of the license's fair-market value, plus 100% of the fair-market value for the station itself.

The bill would require the receiver to operate the station as a for-profit entity and use the profits to support nonprofit arts in its service area. The receiver would also be barred from selling the station to a commercial broadcaster under any circumstances; its only option would be to return the license to the Federal Communications Commission, at which time the company that originally donated the station could get it back.

Andrews, who voted for the 1996 Telecom Act that made consolidation possible, now says the act has been a mixed blessing. While it has created media conglomerates that don't consider, for example, a classical station sufficiently profitable, he says it has also helped speed the arrival of the Internet era.

"Ultimately, we won't need the legislation that I'm proposing, because the digital divide will close," Andrews says. "The personal computer will become as common and cheap as the telephone, and if someone wants to listen to classical music, they'll go to a Web site, and there will be an infinite number of choices."

But Andrews thinks that day is still at least 10 years away, and his bill is designed to bridge the gap between now and then. "Virtually anyone that wants to listen to classical music or watch ballet is going to be able to do so when they want to, on-demand on a PC, but we're not there yet.