Media Democracy Emergency!
Networks Urge FCC To Eliminate All Media Ownership
Caps -
And What You Can Do To Help Stop It!
The corporate networks are on the move! They're demanding
that the Federal Communications Commission allow them to buy
everything, merge everything, consolidate everything. They
want it all!
The FCC is scheduled to hold hearings in Virginia in February.
FCC chair Michael Powell wants to eliminate most limits on
media ownership. See FAIR's statement at
www.fair.org/activism/fcc-call-action.html.
Contact your favorite community radio station programmers
and urge them to cover this issue! Good progressive media
contacts at www.lasarletter.com/fcctalk.
Smart progressive experts ready to go live or on tape!
Don't just stand there! Do interviews! Shows! Documentaries!
News stories!
[Please forward this message everywhere!]
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Networks urge FCC to discard old rules
BY EDMUND SANDERS
LOS ANGELES TIMES
WASHINGTON — Three of the nation’s top television
networks have urged the federal government to scrap all remaining
media-ownership rules, which they say are no longer needed
to spur competition among broadcasters and ensure diversity
on television.
In a lengthy filing Thursday with the Federal Communications
Commission, Fox Entertainment, NBC and CBS parent Viacom Inc.
cited eight privately funded studies that they said showed
how consolidation of television and radio stations had spurred
more diversity of programming and local news, not less. "The
commission can abandon the current regulatory framework in
its entirety and still rest assured that its policy goals
will be well-served," the media giants said. "There
is no longer any public-interest need served by the commission’s
media-ownership rules — in fact, the rules frequently
undermine rather than advance the commission’s policy
goals."
Consumer groups and entertainment unions hotly dispute such
assertions, saying that media consolidation is putting TV
news and programming into the hands of a few entertainment
conglomerates.
In their own filings, groups including the Center for Digital
Democracy, Writers Guild of America and Consumer Federation
of America urged the FCC to strengthen media-ownership rules,
which they argued are vital to the nation’s democracy
and freedom of speech. "We’ve already winnowed
it down to six big entertainment companies," said Victoria
Riskin, president of the Writers Guild of America, West. "If
we deregulate more, will that become three, or two or one?"
The FCC plans to decide this spring whether to modify or
eliminate the rules. Thursday was the first deadline for interested
parties to offer their comments. (Tribune Co., parent of the
Los Angeles Times, has been a leading critic editorially of
the rules.)
The TV networks took particular aim at an FCC rule that
prevents a single TV broadcaster from reaching more than 35
percent of the national market and another that restricts
how many stations one company can own in the same market.
With recent acquisitions, CBS, Fox and others are bumping
against or exceeding FCC ownership limits. Another top network,
Walt Disney Co. ’s ABC, is not as close to the FCC limits
and did not participate in Thursday’s joint filing.
The TV giants said the rules are outdated because of new
sources of information such as the Internet and the growth
of cable channels, which are not subject to the same ownership
rules.
NBC, CBS and Fox offered a study by Washington-based Economists
Inc. that concluded that local TV stations owned by one of
the large networks provide 30 percent more news and public
affairs programming than stations owned by smaller affiliates
or independent companies, whom the rules were meant to protect.
Fox, for example, said it increased local news tenfold after
acquiring KSTU-TV in Salt Lake City and doubled news programming
after buying KTTV, Channel 11, in Los Angeles.
The networks also insisted that joint ownership of multiple
TV stations in the same market increases diversity of viewpoints
because group owners attempt to differentiate programming
in the same market so their stations don’t compete for
the same audience. The FCC currently permits joint ownership
of two TV stations in the same market — duopolies —
under certain circumstances. For example, KTTV and KCOP, Channel
13, in Los Angeles are owned by News Corp., parent of Fox.
Critics, however, say joint ownership of TV stations leads
to consolidation of newsrooms, layoffs and the loss of independent
voices in the community.
The issue has divided broadcasters. Smaller TV station owners,
concerned by the growth of the networks, favor retaining some
ownership limits, including the national 35 percent cap.
In a filing Thursday, the National Association of Broadcasters
asked the FCC to permit duopolies between smaller, lowerrated
broadcasters, but prevent combinations between larger, top-rated
stations. |
