FCC CHAIRMAN AIMS TO FAST-TRACK REVAMP OF MEDIA OWNERSHIP RULES (NYT, TVW)

By Nancy Vialatte

Kevin J. Martin, the head of the Federal Communications Commission has circulated an plan that would see the relaxation of the decades-old media ownership rules, including repealing a rule that forbids a company to own both a newspaper and a television or radio station in the same city.

Martin is angling to repeal the rule in the next two months. If successful, the plan would be a big victory for some executives of media conglomerates.

Among them, points out the New York Times, are Samuel Zell, who is seeking to complete a buyout of the Tribune Company, and Rupert Murdoch, who has lobbied against the rule for years so that he can continue controlling both The New York Post and a Fox television station in New York.

The FCC began re-examining its media ownership rules 18 months ago, after an appellate court in 2004 threw out the broad rewrite of rules adopted under former FCC chairman Michael Powell. (TVW)

The proposal appears to have the support of a majority of the five commission members, agency officials said, although it is not clear that Mr. Martin would proceed with a sweeping deregulatory approach on a vote of 3 to 2 — something his predecessor tried without success. In interviews on Wednesday, the agency’s two Democratic members raised questions about Mr. Martin’s approach. (NYT)

Martin said he was striving to reach a consensus with his fellow commissioners, both on the schedule and on the underlying rule changes. “We’ve had six hearings around the country already; we’ve done numerous studies; we’ve been collecting data for the last 18 months; and the issues have been pending for years,” Martin told the NYT. “I think it is an appropriate time to begin a discussion to complete this rule-making and complete these media ownership issues.”

Officials said the commission would indeed consider loosening the restrictions on the number of radio and television stations a company could own in the same city.

Currently, a company can own two television stations in the larger markets only if at least one is not among the four largest stations and if there are at least eight local stations.

The deregulatory proposal is likely to put the agency once again at the center of a debate between the media companies, which view the restrictions as anachronistic, and civil rights, labor, religious and other groups that maintain the government has let media conglomerates grow too large. (NYT)

With advertising revenue shifting further from the printed page and onto the Internet, the newspaper industry has undergone a wave of upheaval and consolidation. That has put new pressure on regulators to loosen ownership rules.

However, deregulation in the media is difficult politically, because many Republican and Democratic lawmakers are concerned about news outlets in their districts being too tightly controlled by too few companies.

“This is a big deal because we have way too much concentration of media ownership in the United States,” Senator Byron L. Dorgan, Democrat of North Dakota, said at a hearing on Wednesday.

“If the chairman intends to do something by the end of the year,” Dorgan added, “then there will be a firestorm of protest and I’m going to be carrying the wood.”

Supporters of the changes say that the rules are outdated and that there is ample empirical evidence to support their repeal. A small number of media companies, including The New York Times Company, are able to own both a newspaper and a radio station in the same city because the cross-ownership restrictions, which went into effect in 1974, were not applied retroactively. (NYT)