Media Ownership Rules Spark Debate at Forum

Proposals to relax media ownership rules are becoming a political hot potato even before a congressionally mandated review is complete.

Frustrated at growing criticism of the process, Federal Communications Commission Chairman Michael K. Powell used a public forum in New York on Thursday to blame Congress for passing a 1996 law that ordered the FCC to examine its media ownership rules every two years. The commission is supposed to eliminate regulations if it cannot show they are still required in the public interest.

“I find it somewhat regrettable,” Powell said of the mandate.

In the past, Powell has questioned the legality and usefulness of long-standing rules, which include caps on the growth of TV station owners. Recently, however, he has focused more on Congress, stressing that his agency must review the rules.

At a Senate hearing this week, lawmakers from both parties expressed concern that the FCC might go too far in relaxing regulations. The early round of political blame-placing appears to signal discomfort among officials, who are trying to balance calls by media giants to lift the rules with concerns that additional consolidation will give companies too much control over audience choices.

(Tribune Co., parent of the Los Angeles Times, is among the media firms lobbying against the rules.)

“There are going to be rules when this proceeding is over,” Powell said Thursday, stressing that he has no plans to throw out all the caps.

Rep. Jerrold Nadler (D-N.Y.) suggested that “maybe we in Congress should revisit” the review requirements in the 1996 Telecommunications Act.

FCC Commissioner Jonathan S. Adelstein, who has expressed skepticism about relaxing the rules, also faulted the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals for interpreting the 1996 law to mean that the FCC must show that rules promote viewpoint diversity and localism on television. He said the FCC is having difficulty finding a fair standard to measure such subjective, intangible goals.

At Thursday’s event, hosted by Columbia University’s law school, four television executives from Fox and CBS squared off against 18 producers, artists, academics and media advocates over the effects of deregulation.

“You can’t get played on radio unless you are part of the [corporate] machine,” said Elizabeth Ziff, an alternative musician. She said local radio stations that have been purchased by large owners, such as Clear Channel Communications Inc., no longer play listener requests but instead use playlists from the parent corporation.

James Winton, executive director of the National Assn. of Black Owned Broadcasters, said cable channel Black Entertainment Television killed off much of BET’s news and public affairs programming after it was bought by Viacom Inc.

But Dennis Swanson, chief operating officer of Viacom Television Stations Group, said media companies continue to offer local content because consumers want it. “The better you are locally, the more successful you are,” Swanson said.

Ellen Agress, senior vice president of Fox Entertainment Group, said history has shown that deregulation in the early 1990s helped create the Fox Network, despite skepticism about the viability of a fourth network.