WASHINGTON -- Two more public broadcasting stations announced Thursday that they have traded mailing lists with political organizations and at least one of the stations -- Washington's WETA -- said the Democrat National Committee used its mailing lists to solicit political support.

In addition to WETA, New York's WNET said its mailing list had been traded with political organizations. WNET spokeswoman Stella Giammasi said the station does not know which political organizations did business with the station. However, Giammasi added that the station Thursday fired the company that manages its mailing list.

L.A. station denies swapping

A spokeswoman for KCET in Los Angeles said the station had checked back as far as 1996 and found no evidence that any political organizations had benefited from its mailing list.

In response to questions from Daily Variety, WNET and WETA initially denied that any of their mailing lists had gone to political parties. But after further research, the stations amended their stories.

In an effort to raise revenue and build their own mailing lists, pubcasting stations regularly swap names with like-minded organizations. Much of this bartering, which sometimes includes outright fees for names and addresses, is handled by third-party brokers. Pubcasting sources blamed some of their current problems on these brokers, who traded and sold names to political organizations despite specific station policies banning the practice, WNET's Giammasi said.

News that Democrats had taken advantage of pubcasting stations' mailing lists has Republicans seeing red. And it already has dealt a devastating blow to high hopes that Congress would increase the annual federal subsidy for pubcasting. Instead of a healthy budget hike, House Republicans are now looking for ways to trim the federal subsidy for the Corp. for Public Broadcasting.

Trading unearthed

The controversy over station mailing lists was touched off early this week when House Republicans discovered a May 8 Boston Globe article that revealed WGBH had traded mailing lists with the DNC. WGBH initially claimed that it was an isolated incident and an "administrative error."

But it became clear Wednesday that the Boston station had traded names with the DNC from November of 1993 to February. A total of more than 40,000 names were swapped back and forth between the station and the committee.

WETA spokeswoman Mary Stewart said Thursday that Republican organizations also benefited from the station's mailing lists. Although the Republican National Committee did not swap names with WETA, a group called Great American Republicans did. A spokesman for House Telecommunications Subcommittee chairman Billy Tauzin (R-La.) said Thursday that he had been reassured by the RNC that it did not barter mailing lists with pubcasting stations.

Tauzin, who has been a vocal supporter of pubcasting, is planning a hearing for Tuesday that he hopes will feature witnesses from WGBH and other pubcasting outlets.