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.
RETHINK? The defense ministry and Navy Command Headquarters could take over the indigenous submarine project and change its production timeline, a source said Admiral Huang Shu-kuang’s (黃曙光) resignation as head of the Indigenous Submarine Program and as a member of the National Security Council could affect the production of submarines, a source said yesterday. Huang in a statement last night said he had decided to resign due to national security concerns while expressing the hope that it would put a stop to political wrangling that only undermines the advancement of the nation’s defense capabilities. Taiwan People’s Party Legislator Vivian Huang (黃珊珊) yesterday said that the admiral, her older brother, felt it was time for him to step down and that he had completed what he
ROLLER-COASTER RIDE: More than five earthquakes ranging from magnitude 4.4 to 5.5 on the Richter scale shook eastern Taiwan in rapid succession yesterday afternoon Back-to-back weather fronts are forecast to hit Taiwan this week, resulting in rain across the nation in the coming days, the Central Weather Administration said yesterday, as it also warned residents in mountainous regions to be wary of landslides and rockfalls. As the first front approached, sporadic rainfall began in central and northern parts of Taiwan yesterday, the agency said, adding that rain is forecast to intensify in those regions today, while brief showers would also affect other parts of the nation. A second weather system is forecast to arrive on Thursday, bringing additional rain to the whole nation until Sunday, it
CONDITIONAL: The PRC imposes secret requirements that the funding it provides cannot be spent in states with diplomatic relations with Taiwan, Emma Reilly said China has been bribing UN officials to obtain “special benefits” and to block funding from countries that have diplomatic ties with Taiwan, a former UN employee told the British House of Commons on Tuesday. At a House of Commons Foreign Affairs Committee hearing into “international relations within the multilateral system,” former Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) employee Emma Reilly said in a written statement that “Beijing paid bribes to the two successive Presidents of the [UN] General Assembly” during the two-year negotiation of the Sustainable Development Goals. Another way China exercises influence within the UN Secretariat is
CHINA REACTS: The patrol and reconnaissance plane ‘transited the Taiwan Strait in international airspace,’ the 7th Fleet said, while Taipei said it saw nothing unusual The US 7th Fleet yesterday said that a US Navy P-8A Poseidon flew through the Taiwan Strait, a day after US and Chinese defense heads held their first talks since November 2022 in an effort to reduce regional tensions. The patrol and reconnaissance plane “transited the Taiwan Strait in international airspace,” the 7th Fleet said in a news release. “By operating within the Taiwan Strait in accordance with international law, the United States upholds the navigational rights and freedoms of all nations.” In a separate statement, the Ministry of National Defense said that it monitored nearby waters and airspace as the aircraft