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ELECTION IN MEXICO
Fox News to Go Dark Before Vote
By Matea Gold
Times Staff Writer

June 29, 2006

NEW YORK - Fox News Channel is going off the air in Mexico in advance of Sunday's presidential election to steer clear of that country's restrictions on campaign ads and public surveys, cable channel executives said Wednesday.

Fox News decided to temporarily halt transmission into Mexico because of concerns that the channel's coverage would violate a ban on disseminating opinion polls or campaign commercials in the days before the election, and jeopardize the standing of the cable and satellite companies that distribute its signal.

"I just don't think we had much choice," said Janet Alshouse, senior vice president of international distribution for Fox News. "We can't restrict our coverage."

The channel planned to go dark at 12:01 a.m. today and resume transmission after the polls close Sunday evening. A message in Spanish and English will tell viewers that Fox News is temporarily unavailable.

Sergio Sarmiento, a columnist for the Mexico City newspaper Reforma, said that although Fox News did not have a large audience there, the channel's decision was a form of self-censorship that set "a dangerous precedent."

"We do need the foreign media," he said.

It was unclear Wednesday whether any other organizations planned to pull their signal in advance of the election. CNN International and CNN en Espanol plan to remain on the air, said spokeswoman Caroline Rittenberry.

"CNN is a global broadcaster with multiple global networks and we are used to trying to work within the regulations of the countries that we serve," she said.

Mexican law prohibits the broadcast or publication of opinion surveys in the eight days leading up to an election, as well as any campaign activities in the three days before the vote. In a memo to Fox News, government officials said that electoral law also prohibited the discussion of citizens' political preferences and analysis of candidates' weaknesses on the air in the days before the election.

Officials from Mexico's Federal Electoral Institute were unavailable for comment.

Fox News, which is available in 3.3 million of the 4 million homes in the country that have cable or satellite service, learned of the restrictions this month in early June when a representative was summoned to a briefing by electoral officials, Alshouse said. Unlike CNN and BBC, which have separate domestic and international feeds, Fox News distributes just one signal to its audiences. The cable channel is available in 88 countries.

"If we modified our coverage - which we would never do - it would impact our coverage all over the world," Alshouse said.

Times researcher Carlos Martinez in Mexico City contributed to this report.