"Always Listen to Your... Equal Time for Mayor Candidates on... WMOM"

[XLFD]

When people heard the news that Ludington City Councilor Gary Castonia had officially entered the mayor's race they may have thought:  "Oh great; another tired, old, corrupted councilor about to be term limited out of office is blessing us with an extra choice we won't take." 

But the entrance of Castonia actually signifies more than that, and the reason is the part-time job he has been in  few years since his retirement.  Back in 2012, Gary "Cazie" Castonia teamed up with Todd "Scoop" Hansen to broadcast Ludington Oriole sporting events on local radio station WMOM (WMOM Sports Team).  Cazie provides color commentary for both boys and girls high school basketball, as well as football, Scoop providing the play-by-play.

What does this have to do with the Ludington mayor's race?  Cazie is part of a broadcast team, and so whenever he gets on-air to broadcast a game, he has a distinct advantage over the other three mayor candidates who don't, and who would have to pay for air-time on WMOM out of their campaign coffers. 

Federal law, specifically Federal Communications Commission (FCC) political broadcasting rules (section 315) has it that once a candidate becomes "legally qualified" (i.e. he or she has established their right to a place on the ballot by filing the necessary papers), equal opportunities rights are available to the opposing candidates.

What this means is that, if an on-air broadcaster who is running for political office stays on the air, any opposing candidate can come to the station and demand equal opportunities within seven days of the date on which the on-air announcer/candidate was on the air, and the opponent(s) would be entitled to the same amount of time in which they can broadcast a political message, to be run in the same general time period as the station employee/candidate was on the air.

Therefore, if a morning radio personality, radio commentator, newscaster, or even a color commentator for sports programming decides to run for mayor (or any other elected position) and he/she broadcasts twice a week for two hours, an opposing mayor candidate(s) can get up to four hours, and that opposing candidate(s) does not need to air the news, sports, or weather, but can do a full politically-based message  (see p. 7+ in this manual). 

Certainly, Mr. Castonia does not broadcast high school sports during the middle of summer, so he has no on-air time for now; additionally it should be noticed that the basketball seasons for both boys and girls do not start until well after the November election.  However, in just three weeks the Ludington Orioles football season begins with a home opener hosting Hart, with Scoop and Cazie scheduled to broadcast that event.

Eight other regular season games are spread out on Friday nights throughout the football season, all occurring before the election.  There could even be one or two playoff games before that time if the Orioles can turn things around this year.

The ramifications are that if Gary Castonia broadcasts as he has the last four years, his opponents could claim that amount of time (or less) for their own political messages.  If both the Orioles and their opponents feature a lot of running plays, this period may be as low as two hours.  If they are passing teams, it may be around three hours.  Conceivably, you could hear his three opponents coming on WMOM the following Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday respectively talking local politics for three hours, rather than the station's prime-time music line-up.

Is there a way around this potentially disastrous situation for Gary Castonia and WMOM?  They have four clear options:

• Obtain waivers from the opponents of the station employee allowing the employee to continue to do his job, perhaps with conditions such as forbidding any discussions of the political race.
• Allow the candidate to continue to broadcast in exchange for a negotiated amount of air time for the opponents.
• Provide equal time to the opposing candidates equal to the amount of time that the host’s voice was heard on the air if the opponents request it (within 7 days of the host being on the air)
• Take the host off the air during the election.

The third option is risky, and should likely be taken off the table once any other candidate claims the right.  Especially since now that their on-air personality is a 'legally qualified candidate' running in a contested election they must keep accurate records of his broadcast appearances (even in the use of Cazie's catchphrase "Always listen to your mom." advertisements of sportscasts) and put it in their publicly-available "public file". 

[XLFD]

I actually think there is merit on how the non-profit is funded, but like most things, it is debatable.  Read this from their website and decide for yourself:

"A private, non-profit corporation, the MHSAA receives no tax dollars from the state of Michigan or the federal government. Its membership, made up of public, private and parochial schools, pay no membership dues or tournament entry fees — the only one of two such associations nationally to not accept membership dues or tournament entry fees from schools.

Through their boards of education, member schools voluntarily join the MHSAA each and every year, vowing by formal resolution to abide by and enforce common rules for educational athletics. Membership is optional: schools may conduct a complete program of interscholastic athletics and may participate against MHSAA member schools in regular-season competition without joining the MHSAA."

To my level of understanding, radio stations broadcasting playoff games (usually with a wider audience than regular season) pays fees in accordance with a formula derived using variables from what they charge for radio advertisements during such games and how many minutes of ads they have.  They then extract a not-too-unreasonable percentage of that.

[XLFD]

"Good ole Boys Club Needs to Go" cleared up their posts and rode into the sunset; apparently the Synergy Group was not appreciative of the content and the inaccuracies.  We appreciate their participation and welcome them back if they really want to get rid of the GOBC using verifiable facts and data.

[AQUAMAN]

Well said and investigated X. And as both Shinblind and Brad said, I 3rd my vote for a city councilor that actually does a good job of finding the true facts and reality of any story/situation.

[XLFD]

Is there anybody who has listened to either or both of the Ludington Oriole's football games this year (hosting Hart then at Farwell) on the radio and heard the new color commentator, Steve Miller?  If so, and you have listened to the old team with Mayor candidate Gary Castonia and the same play-by-play announcer Todd "Scoop" Hansen, could you provide as unbiasedly as you can, an analysis, comparison and/or contrast review of the two commentators? 

[Willy]

I don't follow any high school sports. If nobody answers your question we may find out that noone else listens to Oriole's radio broadcasts either. Could be Castonia had a .00001 share rating which, I hope, carries over to the election.

[AQUAMAN]

Can anyone replay the Steve Miller broadcasts of the last few games? I'd be grateful, and also like to comment on his actions play by play, thanks.