TWO LETTERS ADDRESSED to KNEW, 910 AM, stood out among the public files at the Clear Channel offices on Townsend Street. Perhaps this was because these were the only two letters the station received all last year, at least according to the file. Or maybe it was because one of the letters had a few choice words for conservative pundit Michael Savage and the other called attention to the way Clear Channel was squeezing candidates in the California gubernatorial recall election for more money than most could afford.

One month before Gray Davis was removed from office, a campaign watchdog wrote to KNEW urging station manager Ed Krampf to change Clear Channel's policy for selling political ad time. Clear Channel was refusing to sell ad time to candidates in the recall election unless they bought into the company's "political action network," which included at least 20 stations, the letter charged.

At the time, Clear Channel representatives in Washington, D.C., told the letter's writer, Meredith McGehee, executive director of the D.C.-based Alliance for Better Campaigns, that her information was wrong. But McGehee confirmed the facts with California media buyers and Ira Teinowitz, a reporter for Advertising Age magazine who had obtained a Clear Channel memo about the ad policy. Advertising Age first reported the story Aug. 18.

Radio stations were not required to sell ads to any of the candidates in the recall election. By law they only had to treat each candidate equally. Clear Channel satisfied this requirement by setting the bar so high that only the richest four candidates could afford to purchase ad time.

By contrast, Infinity Broadcasting Corp., San Francisco's other radio giant, opted to refuse advertising to all recall candidates, accepting ads only from third-party political action committees. Infinity also broadcast a news forum at which recall candidates were given one minute of uninterrupted speaking time at no cost.

Together, these rules effectively closed off one-third of the San Francisco radio market to 131 recall candidates. The remaining four with enough money to mount serious campaigns were left to search for other options, such as outdoor advertising, which of course is also controlled by Infinity's parent company (Viacom) and Clear Channel.

In total, Arnold Schwarzenegger spent $272,000 on Clear Channel radio ads in less than three weeks leading up to the election. State senator Tom McClintock, with help from the California Republic Assembly, put up $94,480, while Davis scraped together $43,775. The biggest spender of all: former baseball commissioner and free market-lover Peter Ueberroth, who spent $482,545 during his short-lived campaign.

McGehee noted in a recent interview with the Bay Guardian that the Federal Communications Commission awards broadcast licenses for free, asking only that station owners uphold the public interest – in part by facilitating the flow of political information during a campaign. She emphasized that although Clear Channel was responsible for limiting candidates' access to advertising, the FCC failed to strengthen the meaning of a station's "public interest obligation."

A U.S. Senate commission led by then-vice president Al Gore recommended six years ago that the FCC prohibit stations from refusing to sell air time to any candidate for local or state office. Since then, the FCC hasn't even considered adopting the Gore commission's proposed rules.

McGehee told us access to the public airwaves during such an important election is clearly in the public interest, but she doesn't expect any of the stations to be held accountable by the FCC. "It's too bad the FCC isn't really serious in taking these things into account when looking at issuing licenses," she said.

Joe Cunningham, vice president for marketing and comanager of Clear Channel Bay Area, defended the political action network as a way the company could meet both the public interest and the needs of advertisers. Clear Channel had no intention of keeping recall candidates off the airwaves, he said, but it could not cede all its ad space for the special election.

The FCC's equal-opportunity rule does not give candidates the right to "cherry-pick a morning and afternoon drive," Cunningham remarked. "You have to buy a particular package."

Unless, of course, you don't have the money to buy such a big one.

Matthew Hirsch