Senate Approves Measure to 
Undo FCC Rules 

FRANK AHRENS / Washington Post 16sep03

[NY Times article below]

The Senate voted 55 to 40 today to wipe out all of the Federal Communication Commission's controversial new media rules, employing a little used legislative tool for overturning agency regulations.

FCC Chairman Michael K. Powell

The resolution of disapproval, sponsored by Sen. Byron L. Dorgan (D-N.D.), is now put on the House calendar, where a tougher vote is expected. Even if passed by the House, the White House has promised a veto.

Dorgan's resolution is the most sweeping of several challenges to the FCC's rules, which make it easier for media corporations to buy more newspapers and television stations but tighten radio ownership rules.

On June 2, the FCC passed new rules that allow a newspaper to buy a television station in the same city or vice versa, combinations known as "cross-ownership." Also, the new rules let a broadcast network, such as ABC and Fox, own a group of stations that reach up to 45 percent of the national audience, up from 35 percent, the current "national cap." They allow one media company to own more than one station in many cities. Finally, the new rules tighten radio ownership rules, essentially capping national radio consolidation. This rule would be overturned by Dorgan's resolution as well, allowing radio conglomerates to grow bigger.

"To get a small tightening for radio you have to pay for that with [a 45 percent cap] and cross-ownership; it's too high of a price," Dorgan said yesterday. "We're telling the FCC to do it over and do it right. Reverting back to June 2 is not catastrophic as far as I'm concerned."

Since the new rules were passed, bipartisan bills have been introduced in both the House and the Senate that would roll back pieces of the regulations. In July, the House passed a spending bill with a rider that would fix the national cap at 35 percent. Earlier this month, the Senate Appropriations Committee attached the same rider to a spending bill; a vote has not been scheduled. Dorgan also said he would attach a rider to the Senate spending bill that would re-instate the ban on cross-ownership arrangements.

Nonetheless, Dorgan said his resolution is necessary try to halt the "galloping concentration" in the media, while acknowledging that the resolution faces "some white water rapids" in the House.

On Sept. 3, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 3rd Circuit in Philadelphia put the new FCC rules on hold as it considered an appeal. Yesterday the court denied a petition by several media companies to move the review to the D.C. circuit, which has frowned on media ownership rules in the past. While the rules are on hold, the FCC has said it will not take up media applications to the agency, such as license-transfer bids that are the backbone of media mergers.

The new FCC rules were championed by FCC Chairman Michael K. Powell, who argued that consolidation was less a threat now than when the rules were enacted because consumers have many more choices for their news and entertainment.

source: http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A18674-2003Sep16?language=printer 16sep03

Senate Votes to Repeal New Media Ownership Rules 

KENNETH N. GILPIN / NY Times 16sep03

The Republican-controlled Senate dealt a blow to the Bush Administration today, voting to rescind new Federal Communications Commission rules that would allow large media companies to get even bigger.

By a vote of 55 to 40, the Senate approved a resolution that would roll back the F.C.C. regulations allowing television networks to own more local stations and that would have permitted conglomerates to own newspaper, television and radio stations in a single metropolitan market.

Based on the initial reaction in the Senate to the F.C.C. rule changes, today's resolution, which was introduced by Sen. Byron Dorgan, a North Dakota Democrat, had been expected to pass.

Senator Trent Lott, the Mississippi Republican, co-sponsored the legislation that was approved this morning.

The measure faces a tougher battle in the House of Representatives. And President Bush, who has yet to veto a single piece of legislation, has threatened to veto this bill if it reaches his desk.

"We think the rules that the F.C.C. came up with more accurately reflect the changing media landscape and the current state of network station ownership, while guarding against concentration in the marketplace," Scott McClellan, Mr. Bush's spokesman, said at his daily news briefing today.

He added: "And I did notice the Senate action today. I think that the vote appears to show that there would not be enough votes there to overturn a possible veto."

On Monday, the commission's chairman, Michael Powell, warned that the Senate bill would "create a legal morass that will unsettle media regulation for years to come."

Earlier this month a Federal appeals court in Philadelphia blocked the commission from imposing the new rules while it considered a challenge to them by a group of small radio stations. That court's surprise order could keep the rules from taking effect for many months.

In June, the Republican-dominated F.C.C. voted, 3-2, along party lines to ease decades-old ownership restrictions. The changes included allowing a single company to own television stations reaching nearly half the nation's viewers and combinations of newspapers and broadcast outlets in the same area.

Specifically, the new regulations would enable a company to own as many as three television stations, eight radio stations and a cable operator in one market. They would also permit a television network to own stations reaching as much as 45 percent of the nation's viewers, an increase from 35 percent.

Major media companies said the changes were needed because the old regulations, many on the books since the late 1940's, hindered their ability to grow and compete in a market altered by cable television, satellite broadcasting and the Internet.

Supporters of the Senate resolution said the new F.C.C. rules would lead to what they called an orgy of consolidation that would rob television viewers and newspaper readers of diversity of voices, eliminate competition in the marketplace and reduce the coverage of local issues.

The legislation has provoked one of the fiercest lobbying fights of the current Congressional session.

In recent weeks, television networks and the Newspaper Association of America have lobbied to preserve the rules.

Another powerful interest group, the National Association of Broadcasters, has come out in the middle of the debate — favoring repealing one of the rules, which would let the biggest television networks buy more television stations and against efforts to repeal the other new rules.

All of the new rules are being opposed by a broad coalition of liberal and conservative organizations, labor groups and civil rights organizations, ranging from the National Organization for Women and the National Writers Guild to the National Rifle Association, the Parents Television Council and the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops.

Reacting to the vote, Gene Kimmelman, senior policy director for the Consumers Union, which opposes the new rules, said the Senate "clearly re-established the principle that separate ownership of dominant local newspapers and broadcasters is essential to preserve the checks and balances against media bias that our democracy relies upon. It's now time for federal regulators to listen to Congress and the public and revamp its rules to promote more competition and diversity in local news and information."

TV and Ownership 

MICHAEL BOTEIN / NY Times 10sep03

To the Editor:

The Court of Appeals was right to invalidate the Federal Communications Commission's attempt to expand the amount of the population that a single broadcast company may serve (front page, Sept. 4). Diversity of ownership rather than control of content is the better way to increase pluralism in programming.

However, your Sept. 4 editorial ''Must-Own TV'' is frightening in suggesting reinstatement of the old financial and syndication rules -- a complex set of limits on a network's ability to buy and produce programming -- which another federal court of appeals struck down years ago.

Even if the various incarnations of the ''fin-syn'' rule had been understandable, they created highly powerful disincentives to new production by both independent companies and networks. They were a classic illustration of why content control is not just constitutionally suspect, but also unworkable.

New York, Sept. 4, 2003

The writer is a professor at New York Law School.