GOP's Brown wins equal time on NBC10

NBC10 plans to provide an hour's worth of programming to the Republican candidate for mayor, Karen Brown, settling a dispute that led Brown to file a complaint with the Federal Communications Commission earlier this week.

The television station announced Thursday it would air a special half-hour edition of its @Issue show from 7 to 7:30 p.m. Tuesday, Oct. 18, with Brown taking questions from host Steve Highsmith and NBC10 viewers. The Q & A program will be extended another half-hour, to 8 p.m., on the station's website, NBC Philadelphia Nonstop.

The parameters are virtually identical to an Ask the Mayor program aired on NBC10 last week, featuring Mayor Nutter.

Brown and a small group of supporters had protested her exclusion from last week's event, carrying homemade signs at rush-hour on City Avenue. This week her campaign filed a complaint with the FCC, alleging a violation of the commission's equal-time regulations designed to ensure that licensees provide equal treatment to competing political candidates.

"We have a deal," said Brown's attorney, Republican ward leader Matthew Wolfe. "We withdrew the FCC complaint, and we're very pleased NBC10 is following the law and negotiated with us in good faith."

Kathleen Burke, a spokeswoman for NBC10, said the station had extended a similar offer to Wali "Diop" Rahman, an independent candidate for mayor, to appear Tuesday, Oct. 25, and that the Rahman campaign had accepted.