Revolutionary Idea: Foreign Ownership

The television business often has the feel these days of a Wild West shootout, as heavily armed desperadoes battle for control of a lawless frontier.

This at least has seemed the case in regard to the broadcasting business since passage of the Telecommunications Act of 1996, when Congress lifted radio ownership limits as well as the cap governing television stations. Since then, companies have amassed huge numbers of radio stations (Clear Channel Communications alone owns 1,170 of them, in case anyone’s counting), and expectations are obstacles to greater concentration of television will be relaxed further under the Bush administration’s Federal Communications Commission.

A few rules, however, continue to linger, among them Section 310(b) of the Communications Act, which “restricts interests held by foreign governments and noncitizens.”

In a nutshell, foreign companies are prohibited from owning U.S. TV and radio stations--a rule that appears utterly dated in a global media landscape where various other guidelines have been eliminated, gutted or ignored.

The foreign ownership restriction was actually put in place during the first half of the 20th century, spurred by fears foreign powers might use such channels for nefarious purposes. Such national security concerns have changed, thanks to the explosion of options available to viewers and the fact the U.S. is not at war, cold or otherwise.

As a result, there’s little reason in the modern era for this particular restriction to exist. And though it may sound unpatriotic to make such an observation on the Fourth of July, it’s hard to imagine how foreign owners--be they French, German, Italian, Japanese, heck, even Canadian--could possibly make U.S. broadcasting, particularly at the local level, more unsavory than it currently is.

For one thing, the FCC retains ultimate power over broadcasters by licensing them, for up to eight years at a time, to utilize the public airwaves. Because there’s gold in that there spectrum, even foreign owners would thus have an incentive to toe the commission’s line.

Where the line gets drawn, however, happens to be another matter. Although the commission notes on its Web site, https://www.fcc.gov, “Before we can renew a station’s license, we must first determine whether it has served the public interest,” the FCC also stresses that its rules “generally do not govern the selection of programming that is broadcast. The main exceptions are: restrictions on indecent programming, limits on the number of commercials aired during children’s programming, and rules involving candidates for public office.”

So assuming foreign companies follow limitations about indecency, commercials during kids shows and political fairness, all they really need do to qualify as owners is match U.S. companies in their commitment to meet these nebulous “public interest” obligations.

And let’s face it, on those terms, home-grown broadcasters haven’t set the bar especially high.

Is the concern, for example, that television stations under the thumb of foreign companies wouldn’t be as committed to provide enlightened and informative newscasts? Well, it wouldn’t be hard to exhibit as much dedication to serving the public interest as local news did last Wednesday, when Los Angeles’ network-owned stations--with all the myriad stories available in Southern California, from the power situation to the installation of a new mayor--each lead their 11 p.m. news with comic Paula Poundstone’s arrest on charges of lewd acts against a child and child endangerment.

To which a majority of television viewers no doubt responded, “Paula who?”

Would television stations controlled by foreign companies still present that as the story of most interest to local viewers? Would they jettison all their legitimate news content to follow a freeway chase? Devote precious time within newscasts to plugging a movie from a sister company, or a TV show on their parent network? Squander weekend mornings playing hour after hour of tacky infomercials? (At least the French or Italians might serve up a few more cooking shows.)

For that matter, would radio stations still instruct on-air talent to slip straight from news or talk into reading copy for some advertiser, as has become the norm, so commercials becomes a near-seamless part of the listening experience? Would they have news personnel provide testimonials about the merits of their own laser-eye surgery or get-thin-quick diet regimen on behalf of a sponsor? Run thinly veiled promotion for sister networks in the form of news? Carry infomercials disguised to sound like talk shows?

If so, then broadcasting would be no worse off--no less committed to the public interest--than the medium currently is.

Besides, foreign companies own movie studios, with Columbia Pictures belonging to Japan’s Sony and Universal passing in recent years from the Japanese (Matsushita) to the Canadians (Seagram) to the French (Vivendi). Thus far, there has been no discernible fluctuation in the quality of their film product relative to other studios, as the forecast invariably remains the same: mostly lousy, with scattered showers of good and a rare glimpse of great peeking through the clouds every now and again.

In addition, a foreign company has already owned U.S. TV stations, though the FCC took a few years to catch on. Rupert Murdoch’s Australia-based News Corp. acquired the station group that became the cornerstone of the Fox network in 1985, a decade later receiving a waiver to retain the stations after a protracted investigation surrounding whether the media mogul--a naturalized U.S. citizen--had skirted federal law.

Then, as now, the debate was not about broadcasting as a public trust. It was about money, and a willingness to let international entrepreneurs exercise their inalienable right to pursue it just as vigorously as their U.S. brethren.

This isn’t to say the relaxation of ownership rules has been a good thing for broadcasting or even democracy. Far from it. It’s simply a case of the genie having escaped the bottle long ago, and no one with any jurisdiction having the slightest inclination toward recapturing it.

Given that history, there’s no basis to prevent foreign companies from joining the broadcasting party. After all, why wrap station ownership in the red, white and blue, when what’s on the screen and the government’s actions have made clear the only flag-shaped banner to which they’re paying homage is a familiar shade of green?

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Brian Lowry’s column appears on Wednesdays. He can be reached by e-mail at brian.lowry@latimes.com.