The Importance of Local Broadcasters

Floor Speech

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Mr. CRAWFORD. Mr. Cramer, I appreciate the opportunity. It is an
honor to be able to stand up and advocate on behalf of our
broadcasters, who are not only my constituents and your constituents,
but my colleagues, because I am, as you mentioned, a former
broadcaster, and I know firsthand the importance of broadcasting, as
you indicated, to local and national communities.

You talked about a weather occurrence. Last week, my district and
most of Arkansas was blanketed with ice.

I can tell you with certainty that a good number of my constituents
were tuned in to their local radio station, their local television
station, to hear about school closures and to hear about road
conditions and to hear about other community closures and shelters that
might be available and any number of things that are necessary in times
of weather that could put them in a position of distress, so it is
very, very important.

I have got some statistics here that really speak to the value
proposition that they bring to our economy. In my district alone, there
are 20 local television stations and 233 local radio stations in the
State of Arkansas. That is statewide, not districtwide.

These broadcasters contribute $9.83 billion to our State's GDP, and
they have provided roughly 22,000 jobs in the State of Arkansas.

Beyond Arkansas, in the entire country, local broadcasters account
for 2.65 million jobs, and they provide--get this--$1.24 trillion to
our GDP.

As we talked about, they provide a variety of services to communities
that they support. One of the things that I didn't mention, as a
broadcaster, I was a farm broadcaster, so you can appreciate this,
being from North Dakota.

Most farmers rely on those market reports, weather reports, bug
reports, disease reports, any number of things, information that is
relevant to production agriculture that they rely on, so that was one
of the things that helped launch my career. I was able to start a farm
news network, operated it, started with four stations, and it is now up
to 53 in a five-state area.

All of that is very specific to the local community and what is grown
and raised in those communities, and so farmers have come to rely on
that, and I am sure it is the same in your home State of North Dakota.
But I think the point that we are trying to make here is that every
community is unique. Every community has their own needs, and no one
knows those needs better than the broadcasters who serve those
communities.

I just want to say, as a Congress, I think it is our duty to support
broadcasters who do so much for the region and their communities, and I
appreciate you taking the time to make this hour happen.

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Mr. CRAWFORD. Well, you touched on it right there. It is free, over
the air, they can access it. They don't have to have any special tool
other than a radio.

Everybody's got a radio in their car or in their tractor, in their
truck, in the office, whatever; and when everything else fails, you
can't get a cell signal, you can't get your Internet, whatever, the
radio is reliable.

From the farmers' perspectives, which obviously I have an interest
in, they rely heavily on that, and there is an element of trust. Their
local broadcaster is usually a trusted source of information, so that
is why it is so important and why they rely so heavily on their local
broadcaster, whether that be their 6 p.m. news.

I have been a news anchor on our local television station, and folks
do become accustomed to hearing from you, and they trust that.

Here is the other thing that is interesting about broadcasters: they
are integrating new media in conjunction with their broadcasting, so it
sort of supplements what their core mission is, to provide that service
to the community over the airwaves.

The great thing about broadcasters is they are very innovative. They
are not a static business model. They are developing new technology,
they are integrating new technology, and it all works together, with
the core mission being to serve their communities.

You see fundraising efforts for the Make-A-Wish Foundation on the
local radio station. That is important. Radio stations and television
stations are innovative in community support activities.

AMBER Alerts, not only are they broadcasting those AMBER Alerts, but
they are using texts and social media to supplement that and really
help enhance their broadcasting efforts, too.

There is a lot of these things that you can't get along without, I
think, without our public broadcasters, our local community
broadcasters--television and radio--who operate on the airwaves.

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