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Presidential candidate's show divides TV stations

While soon-to-be announced White House candidate Fred Thompson's Law & Order character was due to disappear from NBC starting yesterday because of concerns over federal equal time provisions, cable viewers will still have plenty of opportunities to see his District Attorney Arthur Branch.

TNT will air 23 episodes of the drama next week alone, apparently unworried about limiting Branch's airplay even as the Tennessee Republican plans to announce his presidential candidacy.

"TNT has no plans to alter its schedule," spokeswoman Shirley Powell said, a stance that could provoke a fight in the courts or before the Federal Communications Commission.

Equal time rules require TV stations to provide the same airtime to opponents when a candidate appears on the air. The many exceptions -- news shows, talk shows, interviews, documentaries -- essentially mean the rules apply to entertainment programming.

Thompson finally ended months of suspense saying he would officially throw his hat into the ring for next year's presidential elections on Thursday.

His entrance into the race triggered NBC's decision to stop airing Law & Order reruns featuring him starting yesterday. Next week Thompson will essentially shift time slots on NBC: The Tonight Show announced that he will appear as a guest with Jay Leno on Thursday.

Thompson attracted criticism last week for scheduling his formal announcement for Thursday morning and thus skipping the Republican debate in Manchester, New Hampshire, on Wednesday night.

But that does not mean that TV viewers watching the debate will not see him.

Campaign officials said on Friday that Thompson had bought a 30-second spot that would be televised nationally on the Fox News Channel, the network carrying the debate.

One campaign official familiar with the decision said the spot would be a sneak preview of the announcement that Thompson will make the next day in a video posted on his Web site, to be followed later on Thursday by campaign appearances in Iowa.

Thompson had come under pressure from the New Hampshire Republican Party and the editorial board of the Union Leader newspaper to participate in the nationally televised debate.

Campaign officials said the advertisement would feature Thompson talking directly to the camera about the announcement he was about to make. It all but certainly ensures him a prominent spot in a debate he will not even attend.

The equal time rules were written when cable was in its infancy, and it has never been clear whether or not they apply only to broadcast stations. It would seemingly take a challenge from one of Thompson's opponents to force a clarification.

Cable's growth could make it harder for its executives to argue that it should receive different treatment from broadcasters. TNT dramas like The Closer and Saving Grace this summer had larger audiences than much of what was shown on broadcast networks.

Thompson appeared on Law & Order in more than 100 episodes. Taking him from the air is not much of a hardship for NBC; once a new season starts, a network is unlikely to air reruns from previous seasons.

Yet Law & Order reruns are a backbone of TNT's schedule, and eliminating some 100 episodes from the rotation would be problematic.
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