by Jody Brown
On a party-line vote, the Federal Communications Commission voted to lift cross-ownership restrictions in markets with nine or more television stations. The decision means, for example, that major owners of TV stations can expand their reach — and in many cities, the same company may now own the local newspaper and a radio or television station.
The 3-2 vote was strictly along party lines, Republicans voting to relax the rules, Democrats voting against it. FCC Chairman Michael Powell and the others on the Commission who favored easing the restrictions said that with hundreds of cable channels and thousands of diverse voices on the Internet, it does not make sense for these restrictions to remain in place.
During the hearing before the vote, FCC Chairman Michael Powell argued that the Commission needed to act or the courts would have intervened. “Without [this] surgery, the rules would assuredly meet a swift death,” Powell stated.
Of the decision itself, Powell said later that the FCC had “embraced a challenge unparalleled” in the history of the federal agency.
“We collected a thorough record, analyzed our broadcast ownership rules from the ground up, and wrote rules that match the times,” he said. “I am confident and proud of the job we have done. I believe that our actions will advance our diversity in localism's goals and maintain a vigorously competitive environment.”
But critics say the result is going to be less diversity and less competition. They point to the government's history in deregulation of the media. Commissioner Jonathan Adelstein countered Powell's statements, saying the changes proposed go far beyond what the FCC has ever done.
“In the end, this order simply makes it easier for existing media giants to gobble up outlets and fortify their already massive market power,” Adelstein said. “It capitulates to too many of the long-standing demands of the media companies that we oversee.”
According to Adelstein, the public stands little to gain and everything to lose because the protections that have protected them for decades have been slashed. In fact, he calls the decision “the most sweeping and destructive rollback of consumer protections in the history of American broadcasting” and “the most dramatic weakening of media ownership rules this country has ever seen.”
“This plan is likely to damage the media landscape for generations to come,” he said. “It threatens to degrade civil discourse and the quality of society's intellectual, cultural, and political life. For those reasons, I dissent, finding [the] order is poor public policy, indefensible under law, and inimical to the public interests and the health of our democracy.”
The decision, Adelstein added, “pulls the teeth out of the remaining rules and leaves the FCC a toothless tiger.”
The other dissenting vote on the Commission was Michael Copp, who believes the revised restrictions to media ownership will have long-term effects.
“Some would have us believe that this is merely an ordinary examination of our rules that we conduct every two years,” Copp stated. “Let's not kid ourselves — this is the granddaddy of all reviews. It sets the direction for how the next review will get done, and for how the media will look for many years to come.”
What's Next?
Many of these critics say that their next stop is Congress, where they will try to have lawmakers adopt some legislation to undo what the FCC has done with this decision. They will find at least three senators among their proponents there: Byron Dorgan of North Dakota, Trent Lott of Mississippi, and Fritz Hollings of South Carolina.
Dorgan predicts the decision will result in an “orgy” of mergers and acquisitions, but less diversity — or as he puts it: “It's many stations and many different voices coming from one ventriloquist.”
Lott says allowing one company to dominate the print and broadcast media in one city or market is not fair to the people who live there. He says it is a question of “over-concentration and losing variety.”
Hollings was a bit more blunt. “This concentration is absolutely in opposition to the interests of the public, and there's no grounds or reason for it other than greed,” he said.
But any move to try to get Congress to block the new ownership rules from going into effect could run into trouble in the House, where Commerce Committee chairman Billy Tauzin reportedly does not like the idea of Congress getting involved.
Taking Sides
One pro-family media group says the FCC ruling effectively gives a monopoly to mega-media corporations and snubs parents' demands for more wholesome programming. The Parents Television Council (PTC) says the Commission has opened a Pandora's Box of indecency and violence on the airwaves.
“Already the airwaves are full of raunchy programming produced by the New York-based mega-corporations who have little or no understanding of or interest in community standards,” says Brent Bozell, PTC president, in a written statement. “The FCC just voted to make it worse.”
Bozell says FCC Chairman Powell and his Republican counterparts on the Commission ignored dozens of public policy groups who felt the proposed change was a bad idea, and instead stood “shoulder to shoulder” with the media corporations against the American people.
“It is a say day when appointed federal officials … turn away from their true constituents and blatantly pander to a few rich TV moguls whose only desire is to further dominate the television industry,” Bozell says.
(This article courtesy of Agape Press.)
