[JPL] FCC eases media-ownership rules

[Doug Crane]

The story you're quoting is ancient history but 
the FCC is once again in the process of trying to 
railroad through some far-reaching changes.  The 
public can make comments to the FCC until 12/11/2007.

During the last go-round in 2003, the comments 
ran about 99% against the proposed 
changes.  Michael Powell and his fellow 
Republicans voted against the Dems 3-2.  The 
changes were thrown out in court but apparently 
Kevin Martin feels like he needs to push the new 
proposals through before the 2008 election.  The 
FCC has held a few public hearings over the past 
few months, typically announcing them only days 
before they occur.  While the numbers in 
attendance may have been smaller than might have 
been the case if adequate advance notice had been 
given, the FCC has gotten an earful.  There are 
some differences between the 2003 and 2007 
proposals, mostly related to ownership limits in the top 20 markets.

I was one of about the first 200 citizens that 
sent my comments to the FCC urging them to not 
relax ownership limits prior to the 2003 
proposals.  The total number of comments 
eventually totalled close to 500,000.  A reporter 
for the Denver Post sifted through some of them, 
found mine, contacted me, quoted me in a story 
she wrote which in turn was noticed by ABC 
News.  ABC's This Week sent a production crew to 
my house around Memorial Day weekend 2003.  I 
talked about why I thought the changes being 
sought by the FCC were shortsighted, etc. which 
were included in a background piece that aired 
immediately before George Stephanopoulus (sp?) 
interviewed then-current FCC head Michael 
Powell.  He discounted or disagreed with 
virtually everything that was contained in the 
background piece which didn't surprise me in the least.

What's been most distressing in the current round 
of proposals being floated is that it is being 
conducting even more stealthily than back in 
2002-2003.  I'd imagine that a lot of people who 
were incensed by the FCC's proposed changes back 
then have either resigned themselves to the fact 
that big media is going to do whatever it takes 
to become bigger or that the FCC wouldn't be so 
brazen as to try this stunt so soon after the last attempt.

Doug Crane
dcrane at comcast.net
KUVO Denver  89.3 FM

And then I had this dream that my whole family 
were just cartoon characters and our success had 
led to some crazy propaganda network called Fox News.
--Bart Simpson

Here's a far more recent story from the NYTimes:

October 18, 2007
Plan Would Ease Limits on Media Owners
By STEPHEN LABATON
WASHINGTON, Oct. 17 — The head of the Federal 
Communications Commission has circulated an 
ambitious plan to relax the decades-old media 
ownership rules, including repealing a rule that 
forbids a company to own both a newspaper and a 
television or radio station in the same city.

Kevin J. Martin, chairman of the commission, 
wants to repeal the rule in the next two months — 
a plan that, if successful, would be a big 
victory for some executives of media conglomerates.

Among them are Samuel Zell, the Chicago investor 
who is seeking to complete a buyout of the 
Tribune Company, and Rupert Murdoch, who has 
lobbied against the rule for years so that he can 
continue controlling both The New York Post and a 
Fox television station in New York.

The proposal appears to have the support of a 
majority of the five commission members, agency 
officials said, although it is not clear that Mr. 
Martin would proceed with a sweeping deregulatory 
approach on a vote of 3 to 2 — something his 
predecessor tried without success. In interviews 
on Wednesday, the agency’s two Democratic members 
raised questions about Mr. Martin’s approach.

Mr. Martin said he was striving to reach a 
consensus with his fellow commissioners, both on 
the schedule and on the underlying rule changes, 
although he would not say whether he would move 
the measures forward if he were able to muster only three votes.

“We’ve had six hearings around the country 
already; we’ve done numerous studies; we’ve been 
collecting data for the last 18 months; and the 
issues have been pending for years,” Mr. Martin 
said in an interview. “I think it is an 
appropriate time to begin a discussion to 
complete this rule-making and complete these media ownership issues.”

Officials said the commission would consider 
loosening the restrictions on the number of radio 
and television stations a company could own in the same city.

Currently, a company can own two television 
stations in the larger markets only if at least 
one is not among the four largest stations and if 
there are at least eight local stations. The 
rules also limit the number of radio stations 
that a company can own to no more than eight in each of the largest markets.

The deregulatory proposal is likely to put the 
agency once again at the center of a debate 
between the media companies, which view the 
restrictions as anachronistic, and civil rights, 
labor, religious and other groups that maintain 
the government has let media conglomerates grow too large.

As advertising increasingly migrates from 
newspapers to the Internet, the newspaper 
industry has undergone a wave of upheaval and 
consolidation. That has put new pressure on 
regulators to loosen ownership rules. But 
deregulation in the media is difficult 
politically, because many Republican and 
Democratic lawmakers are concerned about news 
outlets in their districts being too tightly controlled by too few companies.

In recent months, industry executives had all but 
abandoned the hope that regulators would try to 
modify the ownership rules in the waning days of the Bush administration.

“This is a big deal because we have way too much 
concentration of media ownership in the United 
States,” Senator Byron L. Dorgan, Democrat of 
North Dakota, said at a hearing on Wednesday 
called to examine the digital transition of the television industry.

“If the chairman intends to do something by the 
end of the year,” Mr. Dorgan added, his voice 
rising, “then there will be a firestorm of 
protest and I’m going to be carrying the wood.”

Supporters of the changes say that the rules are 
outdated and that there is ample empirical 
evidence to support their repeal. A small number 
of media companies, including The New York Times 
Company, are able to own both a newspaper and a 
radio station in the same city because the 
cross-ownership restrictions, which went into 
effect in 1974, were not applied retroactively.

Mr. Martin faces obstacles within the agency to 
overhauling the rules. One Democrat on the 
commission, Michael J. Copps, is adamantly 
opposed to loosening the rules. The other, 
Jonathan S. Adelstein, has said that the agency 
first needs to address other media issues, 
including encouraging improved coverage of local 
events and greater ownership of stations by 
companies controlled by women and minorities.

Advisers to Mr. Martin said he hoped to gain the 
support of at least one of the Democrats, 
probably Mr. Adelstein, but Mr. Adelstein said in 
an interview on Wednesday that Mr. Martin’s 
proposed timetable was “awfully aggressive.”

Three years ago, the commission lost a major 
court challenge to its last effort, led by 
Michael K. Powell, its chairman at the time, to 
relax the media ownership rules. The United 
States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit, in 
Philadelphia, concluded that the commission had 
failed to adequately justify the new rules. Mr. 
Martin’s proposal would presumably include new 
evidence aimed at fending off similar legal challenges.

Mr. Powell’s effort, which had been supported by 
lobbyists for broadcasters, newspapers and major 
media conglomerates, provoked a wave of criticism 
from a broad coalition of opponents. Among them 
were the National Organization for Women, the 
National Rifle Association, the Parents 
Television Council and the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops.

The agency was flooded with nearly three million 
comments against changing the rules, the most it 
has ever received in a rule-making process.

Since the appeals court struck down the 
deregulatory changes, the commission has 
continued to study the issues at a leisurely 
pace, and it held a series of hearings around the 
nation. It had not made any new proposals, and 
industry executives had not expected the agency to move again so soon.

But in recent days, Mr. Martin has proposed to 
expedite the rule-making and hold a final vote in 
December. In part, he has told commission 
officials, he was reacting to criticism by Mr. 
Copps about temporary waivers that have allowed 
companies to own newspapers and stations in the same market.

Mr. Zell has said he wants to complete his $8.2 
billion buyout of Tribune Company by the end of 
the year. Tribune had been granted what were 
supposed to be temporary waivers to the rule to 
allow it to control newspapers and television 
stations in five cities: New York, Chicago, Los 
Angeles, Hartford and the Miami-Fort Lauderdale area.

Mr. Copps, who for years has waged a campaign 
against media consolidation, said that it would 
be hard for the commission to proceed during an 
election year because media consolidation has 
provoked deep public skepticism in the past.

He said Mr. Martin’s proposal to complete a 
relaxation of the rules in December would require 
procedural shortcuts, giving the public too 
little time to comment on the proposals and 
industry experts too little time to weigh their impact on news operations.

“We shouldn’t be doing anything without having a 
credible process and nothing should be done to 
get in the way of Congressional oversight and 
more importantly, public oversight,” Mr. Copps 
said in a telephone interview from London. “We’ve 
got to have that public scrutiny. That was one of 
the big mistakes that Mr. Powell made, and he was 
taken to the woodshed by the Third Circuit. I 
fear it is déjà vu all over again.”


At 03:53 PM 11/21/2007, you wrote:

>+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
>
>http://www.marketwatch.com/News/Story/Story.aspx?guid=%7B07D79EF9-C542-4880-
>AC8D-209D54F23B6F%7D&siteid=google&dist=google
>
>FCC eases media-ownership rules
>Agency splits 3-2; vote could trigger acquisitions
>By Jeffry Bartash & Jon Friedman, CBS.MarketWatch.com
>Last Update: 2:38 PM ET Jun 2, 2003