'Outsider’ NAB Chief Checks Out
Analysis: Rehr Hampered by Policy Losses, Poor Timing
by John Eggerton -- Multichannel News, 5/11/2009 2:00:00 AM
Washington — David Rehr, who resigned his $800,000-a-year job as head of the National Association of Broadcasters last week, was a victim of bad timing, a dearth of policy victories and an inability to build key relationships on the Hill and at the Federal Communications Commission, observers said.
The former beer-industry lobbyist acknowledged in an interview last month that he was trying to focus more on those relationships. But apparently that came too late, as did an inspirational speech at the NAB’s April convention that got some good reviews. He also acknowledged he had one strike against him coming in as an outsider.
“I felt like I was the guy who had to prove myself because I wasn’t from the business,” he said.
NAB Joint Board chairman Jack Sander praised Rehr as being forceful and aggressive in the digital area, including on the DTV transition and mobile video, but said the board had asked Rehr to “spend more time on the Hill and more time at the FCC.”
After succeeding Eddie Fritts at the NAB in 2005, Rehr chose to spend much of his time meeting with local broadcasters around the country “when he should have been spending his time solidifying his relationships in Congress,” one veteran lobbyist noted.
Rehr came in at a time when Republicans controlled the White House and Congress and made it clear that associations needed to hire more GOP rainmakers if they wanted access. Rehr had not been in the job long, though, before the Democrats began their ascendancy.
He had problems with Republicans, too, including ex-FCC chairman Kevin Martin and former Senate Commerce Committee chairman Ted Stevens (R-Alaska), who wanted someone else in the job and made that fact known early on.
On the policy fronts, NAB had several setbacks. One was on the issue of allowing unlicensed devices to use the digital-television spectrum band. Others were on the merger of the XM and Sirius satellite-radio firms, which NAB opposed, and on “enhanced disclosure” requirements for broadcasters. Broadcasters also seem likely to be required to pay a per-performance fee for radio song airplay, something Rehr and NAB battled.
NAB chief operating officer Janet McGregor has assumed day-to-day management and a search committee has been formed to find Rehr’s successor. Names floated so far include Martin Franks, a Democrat and CBS lobbyist; former NAB staffer Jim May; and Fritts, though he said he is happy at his own lobbying firm, The Fritts Group, with clients such as News Corp., CBS and DirecTV.
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