Powell Sees No Fast End to Media Rules Debate

New U.S. media ownership rules probably would take as long as seven years to establish, Federal Communications Commission Chairman Michael K. Powell said Thursday.

“I think, sadly, it’s going to take a good five to seven years to get it untangled and settled again,” Powell said at the Practicing Law Institute’s annual telecommunications policy and regulation conference in Washington.

“I don’t mean any one proceeding, I just mean a reestablishment of both a framework and a national consensus about what it ought to be,” he said.

The FCC tried last year to relax some of the regulations to reflect the growth of the industry but ran into objections from Congress and the courts.

The agency tried to allow television networks to own more stations, permit companies to have more TV stations in a single market and lift a ban that prevented companies from owning a newspaper, TV stations and radio outlets in the same market.

However, Congress tightened one of those rules, limiting the networks to owning stations that collectively reached 39% of the national audience. And, in June, a federal appeals court put the other rules on hold, saying the agency needed to better justify the limits set.

The FCC has until early January to decide whether to ask the U.S. Supreme Court to review the case. The agency has struggled for several years to craft media ownership rules that could stand up under court scrutiny.

The judges agreed that the FCC was correct to lift the cross-ownership ban but questioned the restrictions it set.

“I think the regret is not that the rules weren’t put in place, but only that I think it’s now created a fairly chaotic and confused media environment at a time that I think is going to be really troubling to the industry and consumers,” Powell said.

Tribune Co., which owns newspapers including the Los Angeles Times and television stations and has said it wants to own both in a single market, has been unsuccessful in pleading with the appeals court to lift the ban on cross ownership.

Andrew Schwartzman, the lead attorney who persuaded the appeals court to put the relaxed media rules on hold, said there already was a political consensus on what the regulations should be.

“The chairman’s problem is he doesn’t like it,” he said. “It is clear that the American public and a majority of Congress, if not the leadership in the House, thinks only modest change is needed in media ownership rules.”

A spokesman for the National Assn. of Broadcasters, which represents scores of local television affiliates and radio stations, said the government should act quickly to set the rules.

“We believe there is a pressing need for a quick resolution to broadcast ownership rules that hamstring the ability of local radio and television stations to compete with giant cable and satellite providers,” spokesman Dennis Wharton said.