WHAT IF IT'S PRESIDENT McCAIN IN 2009?

It’s no secret that the presumptive Republican presidential nominee Sen. John McCain has had some sharp disagreements with the nation’s broadcasters.

Indeed, some argue that the Arizona lawmaker’s frequent and contentious policy battles with the National Association of Broadcasters during the mid 1990s and early 2000s account for much of his maverick reputation.

Yet, given the alternative—liberal Democrats Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama—broadcasting’s Washington establishment seems ready to forgive and forget and hope that President McCain will be more sympathetic toward TV and radio than Senator McCain has been.

“Senator McCain’s basic free-market philosophy will be a lot better for the industry than a heavily regulatory agenda,” says Disney’s chief lobbyist Preston Padden, an early McCain backer who has been raising money for McCain.

McCain’s differences with broadcasters are “ancient history,” he says.

Another early McCain supporter is Dick Wiley, a former FCC chairman and arguably Washington’s most influential communications attorney, at least when Republicans are running things.

“On balance, most broadcasters are going to prefer McCain because he’s likely to be less regulatory than the opposition,” says Wiley, who is co-chairman of Lawyers for McCain.

"I found when lobbying him he’s very independent and a man of his own views. Some clients might have liked what he said, but others might not,’’ says Wiley.

During the bad old days, when McCain and broadcasters were fighting a running battle, Eddie Fritts was president of the NAB and a McCain nemesis.

But even Fritts is now providing reassurances about a McCain presidency.

“Senator McCain has always been interested in broadcasting because it’s a link to the people. But I don’t anticipate any special legislation or anything particularly adverse,” says Fritts, a McCain campaign contributor.

Fritts now operates his own Washington lobbying firm, the Fritts Group, whose media clients include CBS, News Corp., DirecTV, and the Motion Picture Association of America.

The NAB is looking on the bright side. “Beyond the differences, there is a general understanding on the part of Senator McCain of the unique role local broadcasters play, particularly in times of emergencies and in terms of raising money for charities,” says NAB Executive VP Dennis Wharton.

Tribune Co.’s Shaun Sheehan is also in the McCain camp. McCain recognizes the mediascape is changing, he says.

“I think he’s more willing to embrace that something is going on in the communications market out there that’s bigger than where [Democratic FCC Commissioner] Michael Copps wants to go,” says Sheehan. “This isn’t the robust business it used to be,’’ says Sheehan

Sheehan, a former Marine combat veteran, also says he’s “pulling for one of his own.”

And there are apparently no hard feelings against McCain back home.

“Just because we disagree on some policy issues doesn’t mean he’s [McCain] not a good policymaker,” says Art Brooks, president of the Arizona Broadcasters Association.

“He’s a man of character and a man of his word,” Brooks adds.

“We’ve never been denied access. We always have great conversations on all the issues of the day,” he says.

A McCain aide says McCain wasn’t picking on broadcasters. "Mostly when he does battle these companies it is on behalf of public safety and consumers,” the aide says. "Overall, he’s a champion of a free marketplace and a deregulatory regime.”

The aide points out that McCain has actually been siding with broadcasters of late.

Last year, he introduced a measure that would block the FCC from reinstating the fairness doctrine, and he is co-sponsoring Sen. Mary Landrieu’s (D-La.) bill that gives broadcasters first responder status so they can provide better news coverage during disasters.

McCain chaired the Senate Commerce Committee, which oversees broadcasting and cable matters, from 1997 until 2001 and again from 2003 until 2005. All the years were marked by conflict between McCain and broadcasters.

Much of the friction flowed from McCain’s belief that broadcasters should pay for their digital spectrum.

He called the grant of digital channels to broadcasters “the great American rip-off” and the “great $70 billion taxpayer giveaway.”

"He was very critical of broadcasters and NAB’s role in the process. He seemingly held that grudge for some time and continued to crack the whip on them, “says Adam Thierer, a senior fellow at the Progress and Freedom Foundation.

“McCain tried his damnedest to keep broadcasters from getting the additional spectrum for the DTV transition and broadcasters won,” says one broadcast industry source.

Part of the problem was that McCain didn’t trust broadcasters. He thought they might never return their analog channels.

In late 2005, he tried to move the deadline for the DTV transition to April 2008. But he failed and Congress finally settled on Feb. 17, 2009.

McCain believes that the broadcasters’ foot dragging on returning analog spectrum denied the spectrum to public safety users.

"I think everybody should recognize that they [the NAB] are an incredibly powerful lobby and why they would choose not to act in the public interest is something they will have to answer for,” McCain said in 2005.

To McCain’s thinking, broadcasters “were the cause of thousands of deaths after 9/11,” says a broadcast lobbyist.

Broadcasters also tangled with McCain over his efforts to force broadcasters to offer free airtime to candidates during elections.

And the senator didn’t like the way NAB blocked the development of low-power FM.

“How can we possibly stifle an opportunity for minority and religious organizations to communicate more effectively with their local communities?” McCain asked in 2000. “By permitting special interests to stifle these voices we are truly compromising the most fundamental principles of our party and our nation,” he said.

Broadcasters also recall the hearings where he expressed reservations about radio consolidation.

And there was McCain’s introduction of a broadcast localism bill in 2005, which some broadcasters saw as punitive. It would have reduced license terms from eight to three years.

Some of McCain’s antipathy toward broadcasters may be due to the fact that he couldn’t get the best of them.

During those years, McCain often complained about the "powerful NAB lobby,” once joking, “I have a perfect record; I’ve never beaten them.”

But the history is not all bad.

“You can’t pigeonhole him,” says Tribune’s Sheehan. “In certain areas he was helpful.”

For one thing, McCain did not stand in the way of the FCC Chairman Michael Powell’s efforts to relax the media ownership rules, including the highly controversial newspaper-broadcast ownership ban.

That may explain why Powell is endorsing McCain’s candidacy.

“Senator McCain has a deep and principled understanding of how the digital revolution is transforming the social and economic landscape,” said Powell in announcing his support in January.

Certainly, if McCain wins the election, broadcasters will have even greater incentive to make sure the DTV transition finishes smoothly. The analog cut-off is scheduled to take place less than a month after the new president’s inauguration.

If the industry can move past DTV, broadcasters will have removed the major irritant in their relations with McCain.

But others will remain, including broadcast indecency.

“I would expect a McCain-led FCC to keep its focus on issues that are important to families like broadcast indecency and cable choice,” says Dan Isett, director of public policy for the Parents Television Council.

“He has a solid record being supportive of our issues,” says Isett.

McCain’s interest in keeping TV wholesome also figures into his support for FCC Chairman Kevin Martin’s plan to force cable operators to offer cable channels on an a la carte basis. “Consumers should not have to pay for channels they find distasteful or they do not watch," McCain said last year.

(Despite policy disagreements with the cable industry, McCain enjoys the support of Kyle McSlarrow, president of the National Cable & Telecommunications Association, who is a friend and an active fundraiser.)

With wars raging in Iraq and Afghanistan and the economy in the tank, McCain's top priorities following his swearing in would not be communications policy.

But given his past involvement in it, some believe he could take a personal interest in selecting the next FCC chairman and could inject the White House into the communications policymaking mix—something that President Bush did not do.

“Clearly, for the first time since Herbert Hoover, McCain would be a president with hands-on experience in telecommunications,” says Media Access Project’s Andy Schwartzman.

“When it comes to the FCC, he would have some knowledge about the importance of the agency and would know a lot of potential appointees,” says Schwartzman.

Guessing who might be tapped for slots at a McCain FCC has already begun.

That list includes former McCain aides: Bill Bailey, now a Disney lobbyist (and currently an adviser to the McCain campaign); Lauren (Pete) Belvin, an attorney-adviser with the FCC’s general counsel’s office; Verizon lobbyist Robert Fisher; telecom lawyer Paul Martino with Alston & Bird; and Pablo Chavez, a Google lobbyist.

Current staffer Mark Buse and Lee Carosi Dunn are also in the running.

Buse left McCain’s staff to join ML Strategies as a lobbyist (his clients included Cablevision and NCTA) before returning to McCain’s Senate office as chief of staff.

Dunn has handled McCain’s communications issues for years.

Despite such assurances from the likes of Padden, Wiley and other allies, many broadcasters continue to be wary of McCain, concerned that whomever he entrusts with communications policy will share his distrust of broadcasters.

He can be a “vindictive SOB,” says one industry source. 

And his “unpredictability” may not bode well for any industry, says another.

In an interview with the Wall Street Journal on Monday, McCain says he is “fundamentally a deregulator,” but he also concedes that there are times for regulation.

“I think we found this in the subprime lending crisis—that there are people that game the system and, if not outright broke the law, they certainly engaged in unethical conduct which made this problem worse,” he says in the Journal Q&A. “So I do believe that there is role for oversight.”

In other words, McCain will leave broadcasters alone—unless he concludes as he has done before that they are gaming the system.

Says the Progress and Freedom Foundation’s Thierer: “McCain can be your best friend one day and your worst enemy the next.”