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