Don’t Switch This Dial: FCC Republicans Move to Tune out Media Diversity

by Tula Connell, Jul 19, 2006

In the dead of summer, shortly before what for many people was a long Fourth of July holiday weekend, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) launched a renewed assault in its continuing attack on media diversity.

On June 23, the FCC issued a seemingly bland, bureaucratic-sounding “Notice of Proposed Rulemaking,” the first step in changing media ownership regulations. Commissioner Michael Copps, one of two Democratic FCC members on the five-member commission, had this to say about the quiet FCC announcement:

This innocuous-looking document initiates the single most important public policy debate that the FCC will tackle this year. Don’t let its slimness fool you. It means that this Commission has begun to decide on behalf of the American people the future of our media. It means deciding whether or not to accelerate media concentration, step up the loss of local news and change forever the critical role independent newspapers perform for our country.

Copps was a vocal opponent of the 2003 FCC changes that sought to radically wipe out decades-old limits on the number of local TV, radio and newspaper outlets a corporation could own. Although the FCC approved the radical rule changes in June 2003, a bipartisan majority in the Senate voted to overturn the rule changes. Congress eventually reached a compromise—limiting the number of stations one company could own to 39 percent of the national audience.

The FCC’s latest proposed rule changes likely seek to finish what corporate media interests couldn’t accomplish in 2003: massive media consolidation without any accountability to local communities.

As reported by Stop Big Media, a coalition of organizations working to stop corporate dominance of the nation’s media, FCC Chairman Kevin Martin, a Bush appointee, is eager to eliminate two key protections:

• The rule on “newspaper-broadcast cross-ownership,” which prevents companies from owning a TV or radio station and the major daily newspaper in the same area.
• The local ownership caps that limit a company from owning more than one TV station in most markets. (They can own two in larger markets as long as there are at least eight other competitors.)

Martin and his Big Media cronies want the FCC to lift the restrictions on broadcast cross-ownership and allow one company to own two or more television stations in a single market. Such changes could have a serious impact on the diversity of viewpoints and coverage of local issues in every community.

Martin is trying to ram through the new rules in a process decried by Democratic Commissioner Jonathan Adelstein:

The manner in which the Commission is launching this critical proceeding is totally inadequate. It is like submitting a high-school term paper for a Ph.D. thesis. The large media companies wanted, and today they get, a blank check to permit further media consolidation.

Stop Big Media reports that a recent Details magazine article featuring the 21 “mavericks who are secretly controlling your life,” printed a full-page photo that Stop Big Media characterizes as showing Martin literally in bed with a media executive and an industry lobbyist. As Caaron wrote on the Stop Big Media blog:

You can’t make this stuff up.

(See the photo here.)

The national nonpartisan media policy organization FreePress is working with other media organizations to set up town hall forums where the public can discuss media ownership rules, with the first forum in Asheville, N.C., June 28. A standing-room only crowd of more than 400 people packed a “Town Meeting on the Future of the Media” voicing concerns about greater media consolidation to Copps and Adelstein.

After the Asheville forum, Adelstein said:

I’m sad to report that the large media companies got just what they wanted…they got a wide open notice that’s essentially a blank check to permit further media consolidation, without any accountability to local communities.

The next forum, date to be announced, is set for Milwaukee (check Free Press for forum schedules).

When the FCC, under Republican Commissioner Michael Powell, sought to increase media consolidation in 2003, the commission received hundreds of thousands of e-mails and letters from consumers opposing the rule. At multiple town hall meetings across the nation, participants voiced strong opposition to the proposed rules. Yet the Republican-majority commission voted 3–2 to pass them anyway.

It will take even more e-mail messages, forums and calls to the FCC this time around to make a difference. But Stop Big Media makes it easy to take action—click here to submit comments by Oct. 21, the last day the FCC is taking comments.

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