Tomorrow morning the FCC is expected to open up a new public comment cycle on its media ownership rules. FCC Chair Kevin Martin wants to see them eased to allow more newspaper/TV station cross ownership and more "duopolies"—companies that own more than one TV station in the same market.

The Commission tried to enact news rules in 2003, but saw them struck down by a Federal appeals court a year later (see LL-FCC media ownership timeline and LL-FCC, February 26, 2006).

The Telecommunications Act of 1996, however, commands the FCC to continuously revisit its media ownership policies, and so the process will begin again.

As the debate revs up, you can expect to hear plenty from media reform groups and unions. Today the American Federal of Television and Artists (AFTRA) issued a statement warning that had the FCC prevailed in 2003, their rules "would have resulted in alarming consolidation of media ownership."

AFTRA says they want the public to have plenty of chances for input this time around.

But one group that you may not hear much from, at least publicly, will be Media General, which is odd, because the corporation shows a great deal of interest in this subject.

Media General owns 25 newspapers in the southern United States east of Texas, including The Tampa Tribune, The Richmond Times Dispatch, and The Winston-Salem Journal. It owns 100 weekly newspapers and periodicals. Media Generals literature claims that its 26 network affiliated stations reach 30 percent of households in the Southeast.

The companys fact sheet also boasts that Media General practices "convergence," which it defines as "the melding of newspaper, television and on-line resources in the gathering and dissemination of local news."

Media General wants the elimination of the newspaper cross-ownership ban very badly.

How bad? FCC records indicate that the corporations lawyers have filed no less than seventy-one statements on the newspaper/TV station cross-ownership rule proceeding since December of 2001. Some of the filings are almost 200 pages in length.

Over the last year Media General representatives have met repeatedly with FCC Commissioners and staff on this issue. On July 6th, the Companys Vice President George Mahoney personally met with new Commissioner Robert M. McDowell on the subject.

Media General has high expectations for McDowell. In April its CEO Marshall Morton, speaking at an investors gathering, noted McDowells impending confirmation with great hope, and also praised a "terrific speech" FCC Chair Martin gave at a newspaper owners conference in Chicago in that month.

"[Martin] clearly appreciates the importance of moving forward with a prompt review of the Commissions 26-year old newspaper/broadcast cross-ownership rule," Morton declared.

At the McDowell conference, Media General said what it said 70 times before, what it said when it met with FCC Economist Jonathan Levy and a representative of Commissioner Deborah Taylor Tate in May, and a representative for Commissioner Michael Copps in March, and the FCCs Erin Dozier, Special Adviser on Media Ownership, in July of 2005, and on five dozen previous occasions:

Get rid of that newspaper/TV station cross-ownership ban.

Media Generals stock Powerpoint presentation on this matter, which it includes regularly with its FCC filings, is quite impressive. At least at first glance.

In essence the document argues that media scarcity, the main justification for keeping a lid of media consolidation, no longer exists. The legal consensus for it no longer exists either. There is plenty of media for everyone. Newspapers are hurting. So let the mergers begin.

Thus the presentation displays a chart showing "the demise of scarcity," indicated by the fact that in 1943 there were 931 AM stations in the United States and in 2001 there were 4,727, among other statistics . . . .

. . . without observing that during that time span the population of the United States has more than doubled.

The document notes that in 1998 two FCC Commissioners observed that "The long and short of it is this: as matter now stand, the Commission has unequivocally repudiated spectrum scarcity as a factual matter" . . .

. . . without mentioning that during the proceeding from which Media General quotes, two other Commissioners declared that spectrum scarcity still exists.

The briefing quotes the Telecommunications Act of 1996s Section 202(h) as a clear indication of "Congressional intent":

"The Commission shall review its rules adopted pursuant to this section and all of its ownership rules biennially as part of its regulatory reform review under section 11 of the Communications Act of 1934 and shall determine whether any of such rules are necessary in the public interest as a result of competition. . . . "

. . . without noting what the FCC itself acknowledged in 2001—that when Congress passed the Telecommunications Act, it "expressly considered but rejected making changes to the news/broadcast co-ownership policies."

In pursuit of an intellectually honest discussion about this problem, this news service has interviewed people with different perspectives on media ownership. LL-FCC readers can find conversations on these pages with Pete triDish, whose Prometheus Project spearheaded the legal case against the FCCs 2003 decisions, and Adam D. Thierer, who strongly supports the relaxation of broadcast ownership rules.

When I contacted a Media General press assistant to ask for and arrange an interview with a company spokesperson, the assistant could barely restrain his amusement at my request. Chuckling, he urged me to send him an email. I did and received no reply.

And so I ask the obvious questions of Media General here instead:

How much media do you want? How many TV stations, newspapers, and radio stations in the Tampa-St. Petersburg area, for example, would you like to own?

Would you like to own all the biggest newspapers (you already own three) and the biggest TV stations (you already own one, presumably thanks to an FCC waiver) and the biggest radio stations in that region?

If so, let us put aside all the cherry picked legal precedents and statistics, all the eye-glazing references to Sinclair vs. FCC and Syracuse Peace Council, and ask the next obvious question:

Wouldnt your "convergence" policy turn you into the overwhelmingly dominant media force in that area in all possible ways?

In praising Kevin Martins speech before the Newspaper Association of America on April 5th, Media General Vice President Mahoney did not mention Martins frank assessment of the progress the FCC had made in getting rid of the newspaper/cross-ownership ban.

The public, Martin told the owners, "has not been convinced of the need" for lifting the FCCs ban on TV/newspaper cross-ownership.

"The public needs to understand both the value that your papers offer and the struggles you face in continuing to provide news in an increasingly competitive media market," Martin told the Associations meeting in Chicago on Tuesday April 4th. "Indeed, the failure of the Commission to modify our rules is not our fault alone."

In the end, and I think Kevin Martin knows this, the broadcast ownership rules controversy is not just a debate between the FCC and the public. It is a debate between corporate America and the public.

And if corporate America, especially Media General, cannot come out from its private meetings and FCC filings and make its case in plain daylight, everybody knows what its bid for "convergence" is really about.

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