[lbo-talk] One cheer for formal democracy

Michael Pollak mpollak at panix.com
Fri Jun 20 05:46:39 PDT 2003


[At first glance, this looks like big money plus total media control of an issue (meaning mainly a blackout) getting thrown back on its heels by mere organized constituent pressure. It's not a done deal, but still. Am I missing something?]

New York Times June 20, 2003

Senate Begins Process to Reverse New F.C.C. Rules on Media

By STEPHEN LABATON

W ASHINGTON, June 19 Moving with unusual speed, the Senate today began

the process of reversing the recent decision by federal regulators to

loosen media ownership rules and enable the nation's largest newspaper

and broadcasting conglomerates to grow even larger.

A broadly bipartisan group of the Senate Commerce Committee approved

legislation by voice vote to restore the earlier limits on the number

of television stations a network can own. The bill would also restore

most of the restrictions that have long prevented a company from

owning both a newspaper and a radio station or television station in

the same city.

One provision of the bill would go beyond reinstating the previous

ownership rules by forcing a number of big radio companies, including

Clear Channel Communications, to divest themselves of some of their

stations.

The Senate vote was a clear rebuke of Michael K. Powell, the chairman

of the Federal Communications Commission, who was the architect of the

deregulation.

While the bill has broad support in the Senate, it faces an uphill

battle in the House of Representatives, which has been more receptive

to the changes. The Bush administration has also endorsed the new

media ownership rules.

Senator Ted Stevens, the Alaska Republican who heads the

Appropriations Committee, was a co-sponsor of the legislation approved

today, raising the possibility that the measure could be attached to

high-priority appropriations legislation.

Such a move might offer a way to circumvent opposition in the House

from members like Representative Billy Tauzin, the Louisiana

Republican who heads the House Energy and Commerce Committee and has

applauded the F.C.C.'s relaxed rules.

At a time when Washington's major political institutions and federal

courts have been dominated by deregulatory thinkers, today's action in

the Senate was remarkable both because of the pace of the legislation

and the depths of criticism of the commission by Democrats and

Republicans alike. (Only 1 of 11 Democrats on the committee, and a

minority of the 12 Republicans, spoke against the bill.)

The Senate committee acted even though the federal agency has yet to

issue the final rules it approved by a narrow and rancorously partisan

vote at the beginning of the month.

In recent years, Congress has occasionally blocked an F.C.C. decision,

although typically it does so months after its passage and generally

with narrow consequences.

During the Clinton administration, for example, Congress bowed to the

urging of broadcasters by significantly reducing the size of a plan to

create hundreds of new low-power radio stations.

The Senate bill on media ownership would generally restore the

F.C.C.'s ban on newspaper-broadcasting cross-ownership in a city.

The committee adopted an amendment by Senator Stevens that would ease

the restrictions in the nation's 60 smallest markets, by permitting

state regulators to approve newspaper-broadcast combinations if they

find that "cross-ownership will enhance local news and information,

promote the financial stability of a newspaper, radio station or

television station, or otherwise promote the public interest."

The legislation would also reinstate the rule that has prohibited the

television networks from owning stations that reach more than 35

percent of the nation's households. (The F.C.C. raised that limit to

45 percent.)

The bill would require two networks CBS, part of Viacom, and Fox, part

of the News Corporation that now own TV stations reaching about 40

percent of households to sell some stations to come into compliance

with the 35 percent cap.

David Fiske, a spokesman for the F.C.C., said that neither the agency

nor Mr. Powell would comment on the legislative action.

In testimony earlier this month, the agency's two Democratic members,

Jonathan S. Adelstein and Michael J. Copps, urged the Senate Commerce

Committee to reverse the F.C.C. action. The two had dissented from the

agency's decision, supported by its three Republican commissioners, to

relax the rules.

After today's vote, the two Democratic commissioners asked Mr. Powell

to stay the new rules until after Congress completed its work.

The F.C.C.'s decision had prompted the first major break between Mr.

Powell and his leading political patron, Senator John McCain, the

Arizona Republican who is chairman of the Commerce Committee.

Until recent days, Mr. McCain had appeared to be noncommittal over

efforts to restore the ownership caps. Today, he opposed efforts to

water down the legislation and sponsored the measure requiring the

divestiture of the radio stations.

The commission had approved new radio ownership regulations that would

have limited the growth of the largest companies, but permitted them

to hold the stations they had already acquired. Mr. McCain's

amendment, which was adopted by a 12-to-11 vote, would force them to

sell stations to comply.

Senate aides said the amendment would affect other major radio

companies besides Clear Channel, including Infinity Broadcasting; they

said that they would not know how many stations would have to be sold

if the bill became law until the F.C.C. published the new media rules.

Mr. McCain and others on the committee emphasized the need for quick

action to reverse the possibility of broader media consolidation.

"The deregulatory express is leaving the station unless we take

corrective action," said Senator Olympia J. Snowe, Republican of

Maine. "I fail to understand how the F.C.C.'s action will enhance

`diversity, localism and competition,' " she said, referring to the

statutory requirements that the ownership rules are meant to uphold.

Senator Ernest F. Hollings of South Carolina, the senior Democrat on

the committee and a co-sponsor with Mr. Stevens of the legislation,

said he understood why executives like Sumner M. Redstone of Viacom

and Rupert Murdoch of News Corporation wanted the flexibility to

acquire more stations.

"I don't blame Sumner," he said. "I don't blame Rupert. Heavens above,

they are in a dog-eat-dog world." But, he added, the media

conglomerates are "all fired up to buy up and buy up and buy up, and

we're the culprits by allowing the 3-to-2 F.C.C. ruling to stand."

The lawmakers reacted to a torrent of complaints about the commission

that have come from hundreds of thousands of constituents, along with

criticism from an unusually broad coalition, including the National

Rifle Association, the National Organization for Women, the Consumers

Union and the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops.

The broadcast industry has also split over the national ownership cap.

The networks wanted it raised even higher than 45 percent so they

could own more stations themselves, while the owners of network

affiliate stations, concerned about giving the networks too much

market power, lobbied to keep the cap at 35 percent.

The National Association of Broadcasters, which has lobbied for

legislation restoring the 35 percent cap, said today that it would

work to defeat the legislation because of the newspaper-broadcast and

radio ownership restrictions.

A handful of Republicans, joined by Senator John B. Breaux, Democrat

of Louisiana, sought unsuccessfully to scale back the legislation.

Senator Breaux sponsored one amendment that would have changed the way

the agency measures television audiences, in such a way that would

have permitted the networks to grow. A second amendment he sponsored

along with Senator John E. Sununu, Republican of New Hampshire, would

have permitted Fox and CBS to hold on to their current stations. Both

measures were defeated.

Two Republican members of the committee, Senator Stevens and Senator

Kay Bailey Hutchison of Texas said that they hoped the vote would

prompt the F.C.C. to rethink its decision to relax the rules.

"What the F.C.C. did is completely wrong," Ms. Hutchison said. "I hope

we will send a clear message to the F.C.C. to start all over."

Copyright 2003 The New York Times Company



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