Key organizations are weighing in as the Federal Communications Commission prepares to revisit its controversial efforts to relax ownership requirements for broadcasters.

National Association of Broadcasters (NAB) president David K. Rehr personally met with FCC Chair Kevin Martin on or around Friday February 24th to discuss media ownership rules, as a public letter sent to the FCC that day indicates. On February 8, Rehr filed a statement with the FCC calling for the Commission to "reform the prohibition on owning a newspaper and even a single broadcast outlet in the same market." Rehr also asked the FCC to permit local television "duopolies"—one or more TV stations owned by the same company in the same region.

"Clearly, localism and diversity cannot be served by restrictions that doom local broadcasters to ownership arrangements no longer economically viable in today’s highly competitive media marketplace," Rehr concluded in his letter.

But a week later a coalition of public advocacy groups, including the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, met with a FCC Commissioner to oppose further media consolidation.

Background

On July 2, 2003, under the leadership of then FCC Chair Michael Powell, the Commission issued a Report and Order dramatically revising its media ownership rules.

Local TV Duopoly Ban: The Commission decided that the FCC's prohibition on "duopolies"—companies owning more than one TV station in a market—had become anachronistic. The FCC ruled that media firms could now have an "attributable interest" in two TV broadcast stations in markets with 17 stations or less; and three stations in markets with 18 or more stations.

Broadcast-Newspaper Cross Ownership Ban: The Commission abandoned its rule, adopted in 1975, preventing newspapers from owning TV stations in the same market. Markets with four to eight TV stations could now engage in limited cross ownership. Markets with nine stations or more could merge with newspapers as they wished without restriction.

National TV Ownership Rule: The FCC modified its rule prohibiting any company from owning enough TV stations to reach more than 35% of the nation's TV households. The Commission raised the cap to 45%.

But the public received these decisions with anxiety, fearing an increasingly unaccessible media as the result. The FCC received hundreds of thousands of protests, not only from leftist media democracy groups, but from the National Organization for Women and the National Rifle Association. Even conservative columnist William Safire protested the Commission's ruling.

Shortly after the FCC's decision, a consortium of media democracy, consumer advocacy, civil rights groups and churches asked the U.S. Third Circuit Court of Appeals for a stay of the new rules. On June 24, 2004, they won. In Prometheus Project vs. FCC the Third Circuit Court decided that the FCC's formulas for measuring the impact of their rules on local diversity all had "the same essential flaw." Namely, "an unjustified assumption that media outlets of the same type make an equal contribution to diversity and competition in local markets."

The court told the FCC to come up with a better diversity formula—or at least a better explanation for their rules.

Back to square one

On January 20th, at its first open meeting of the year, the FCC mentioned that it would return to revising its media ownership rules in light of the Third Circuit Court's order. NAB President Rehr's February 8 letter to the FCC argued that competition in the video marketplace coming from satellite, the Internet, and wireless has made it necessary for TV and stations and newspapers to merge in order to remain viable.

"We continue to be concerned that the financial pressures on stations in medium and small markets (especially lower-rated ones) are sufficiently severe to call into question their continued viability as independent operations," Rehr argued.

The NAB has support from Republican Congressmember Fred Upton of Michigan, who has called for a relaxation of all media ownership rules. "Common sense tells us that this explosion of media sources should eliminate any concern over a lack of diversity of views in the marketplace and competition," Upton told The Media Institute, a Washington, D.C. think tank, at a conference on February 16th.

But on that same day, representatives of 7 community and media democracy groups met with FCC Commissioner Jonathan Adelstein, a Democrat, to talk about the renewed media democracy debate. They included Common Cause, the United Church of Christ, the Media Access Project, and the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops.

The group "expressed the concern of their members about media consolidation," according to a letter they filed with the FCC the next day. "They also expressed the concern that relaxing the current media ownership rules would contravene the public interest and harm diversity, competition, and localism. Lastly, the organizations discussed their members’ activities in opposition to increasing media consolidation."

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