FCC Chairman Fowler Takes Hands-Off Attitude Toward Takeover Attempts

If Ted Turner, Jesse Helms or even the reincarnation of Attila the Hun want a shot at taking over a chunk of the nation’s airwaves, they’ll get no quarrel from Federal Communications Commission Chairman Mark Fowler.

Fowler is just a traffic cop, not a “master of the airwaves,” he told a standing-room-only contingent of the estimated 35,000 National Assn. of Broadcasters delegates in a speech closing the group’s 63rd annual convention Wednesday.

If it were not for the takeover fever that has suddenly afflicted media stocks--from major conglomerates like CBS to lesser groups like Cox Communications or Storer Broadcasting--the 43-year-old FCC chairman’s remarks might have been simply routine.

He echoed the free market lectures he has given repeatedly at broadcaster gatherings since President Reagan first appointed him to the commission four years ago.

“Some in Congress see FCC commissioners as their own red lobsters, lobsters with razor sharp pincers,” Fowler said. “Their idea of fun? Drop us into a tank of broadcasters and wait for the yelping to commence. Well, as long as I’m chairman, I’m going to keep rubber bands on those pincers.”

But even as Fowler inflicted fishy metaphors on conventioneers Wednesday, holders of some 30 million shares of CBS stock were gathering for their annual meeting in Chicago.

The chief agenda item in Chicago was the prime topic of Las Vegas gossip as well: Would Cable News Network owner Ted Turner force a leveraged takeover of the CBS network?

Some members of the CBS delegation in Las Vegas wore sobered frowns as they listened to Fowler, perhaps hoping that he might unfetter his pincers in dealing with Turner’s takeover attempt.

The stark reality of a benign FCC, bent on steering totally clear of media takeover attempts, appeared to have drastically changed broadcasters’ perception of Fowler’s free market philosophy.

Last week, by a narrow majority decision, the FCC decided not to interfere with dissident stockholders who want to oust the management of Storer Broadcasting, which owns a group of radio and television stations.

“In broadcasting, economic freedom means getting the government out of the way of the entrepreneur,” Fowler said Wednesday.

He cited the commission’s action last fall to allow big broadcasters to grow even bigger as one of his major laissez-faire achievements during the past year.

The FCC changed a longstanding limitation on the total number of radio and television licenses a single company could own from 7-7-7 (7 AM radio, 7 FM radio and 7 TV licenses) to 12-12-12 (provided that the TV stations do not collectively reach more than 25% of the total U.S. population).

“Bigness is not badness,” Fowler said, referring to the growing chain ownership of radio and TV. “When you allow increases in media ownership you may get more diversity because you create new production sources.”

Fowler pinned his hopes for better and more appropriate children’s TV programming on those same production sources, deferring once again to the marketplace on the sensitive issue of what children see on the nation’s tubes.

Television has created a sophisticated young America that knows “Alexis Colby and Blake Carrington (of ‘Dynasty’) better than Kermit the Frog and Fozzie Bear (of the Muppets),” but the blame for children feasting their young eyes on sex and violence ultimately rests with parents, he said.

Until a “market mechanism is in place to regularly meet the alternative need” of children, Fowler said that he would give his continued support to public broadcasting’s children’s programming efforts.

But, for most of prime-time America, programming is--once again--strictly caveat emptor, according to Fowler. That Nielsen families and Arbitron figures might kill quality programming for a minority segment of the viewing public is simply a problem that networks and production companies must solve for themselves.

Fowler endorsed a suggestion once made by CBS founder William Paley in which the three major networks might “disregard ratings for two prime-time hours each week and aim for quality, not numbers.”

For the most part, however, ratings are still king, according to Fowler’s philosophy.

“What people want to see is generally what they ought to see,” he said. “That’s the marketplace.”