Freepress says that the FCC squelched more than one study on media consolidation. The reform group rushed a press release today reporting that California Senator Barbara Boxer's office has anonymously received yet another FCC paper that says unfavorable things about the impact of the 1996 Telecommunications Act on local broadcast media ownership.

This study, produced by the FCC's Media Bureau some time around 2004 when Michael Powell still ran the Commission, comes to some unpleasant but also unsurprising findings about the impact of the Act. The law allows companies to buy an unlimited number of radio stations nationally, and up to eight in a market of 45 stations or more. The paper concludes:

• Between 1996 and 2003 the number of commercial radio stations rose by almost 6 percent.
• At the same time, the number of radio owners declined by 35 percent. "This decline is primarily due to mergers between existing owners," the report observes.
• And during the same period there has been an increase in the size of the largest radio group owners: "By march 2003, the leading radio group, Clear Channel Communications, owned over 1,200 radio stations."
• "The analysis of publicly-traded companies where radio broadcasting is the primary business continues to reflect strong earnings," the report's summary continues. "Publicly-traded radio companies, however, continue to carry heavy debt loads, which contributes to the high volatility observed in their earnings."
• Radio listening has "decreased slightly" since 1998. Radio ad rates have skyrocketed: nearly 87 percent up since 1996, the year Congress passed the Telecom Act.

If Michael Powell's FCC actually suppressed this study, it's pathetic. Everybody already knows this stuff. In fact, looking back at my media ownership timeline, I'm reminded that in October 2002 the Commission released 12 studies on media ownership, three of which came to conclusions similar to this study, albeit less fleshed out. Here are the executive summaries of those papers:

"Authors' findings: Increased concentration of ownership in local radio markets between 1996 and 2001 explains 3-4% out of the 68% increase in real advertising rates during this period. Economic growth explains much of the other 65%. National concentration does not appear to drive the increase in advertising prices. Finally, a greater presence of large national owners in a local market appears to decrease the advertising rates paid by national and regional advertising agencies."

Authors. findings: Between 1996 and 2002, the average number of radio station owners in each market decreased from 13.5 to 9.9. During same period, the average number of formats remained virtually unchanged (10.1 formats in 1996 vs. 10.2 in 2002). In 1996, the largest station owner in each market received an average of 35.6% of radio advertising revenue. In 2002, the largest owner receives 46.8% of such revenue.

"Authors' findings: This paper develops a model to estimate how consumers, advertisers, and broadcast outlets interact to determine the level of advertising when ownership structures in radio or television markets become more concentrated. The analysis finds that increased levels of concentration in broadcasting markets are likely to result in an increase in the proportion of non-programming material (commercials, PSAs, etc.) among those outlets with an increased market share. However, consumers' response to such increases is an important consideration for broadcasters in determining the extent to non-programming material can be increased profitably."

The Media Bureau's Keith Brown and Peter Alexander, authors of the famously "deep-sixed" local TV ownership study, helped produce all three of these October 2002 reports, and they were publicly released! What a mess.

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