Senators Assail Effort to Raise TV Station Cap

A bipartisan group of U.S. senators, expressing reservations about a Federal Communications Commission plan to ease media ownership restrictions, introduced a bill that would keep the nation’s biggest television chains from getting bigger.

The bill, sponsored by Alaska Republican Ted Stevens and South Carolina Democrat Ernest F. Hollings, among others, would preserve a rule that bars any company from owning TV stations reaching more than 35% of U.S. households. Similar legislation was introduced in the House of Representatives last week. It isn’t clear that sponsors have enough support to prevent the FCC from raising the cap to 45%, as sources say the agency’s staff has proposed.

In addition to raising the nationwide cap, the FCC proposal would also make it easier to own a TV station and newspaper in the same city, depending on the size of the market, according to sources.

In a Commerce Committee hearing Tuesday, senators from both parties voiced opposition to the expansion. “I don’t think at this time it serves the public interest to raise the cap,” said Sen. Conrad R. Burns (R-Mont.).

The commission is scheduled to vote on the proposal June 2.

Several lawmakers repeated calls for the FCC to make public its 226-page staff recommendation before June 2, giving Congress and the public a chance for a more detailed review of the proposal. They also asked that FCC Chairman Michael K. Powell be called to testify before Congress about possible changes.

“The question is, will we have the opportunity for input before the rules are made final?” said Sen. Olympia J. Snowe (R-Maine).

But Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), who chairs the committee, warned against meddling with the independent agency or giving the “appearance of trying to interfere unwarrantedly.” In the 1980s, during the Reagan administration, Congress blocked the FCC from raising the cap.

A spokesman for the FCC declined to comment.

Powell has resisted calls from lawmakers and the FCC’s minority Democrats to release the staff report or delay the June 2 vote. He has noted the agency is under a mandate set by Congress in 1996 to review media ownership rules every two years and lift those that it cannot demonstrate still are needed to promote the public interest.

Viacom Inc. President Mel Karmazin, struggling with laryngitis, was sharply grilled by lawmakers as to whether further consolidation would give his company greater influence over American television and allow it to dominate independently owned, network-affiliated TV broadcasters, which oppose lifting the cap.

Karmazin called it “unsupportable and unrealistic” to persist in limiting broadcasters at a time when the public enjoys far-reaching media choices.

Viacom, parent of CBS, would be a major benefactor of the rule change because it is over the 35% cap and would need to sell stations if the limit isn’t lifted.

Jim Goodman, president of Capitol Broadcasting Co., which owns TV and radio stations in North Carolina and South Carolina, testified against further expansion. “Large media giants are trying to replace localism and community standards with financial opportunity and corporate objectives,” he said.

Bloomberg News and Reuters were used in compiling this report.