The Federal Communications Commission has yet to post an Order on its Web site announcing the details of today's decision to allow entities to own newspapers and TV stations in the same market. But that has not stopped anybody from sending their press releases to LLFCC. Here's what we've got so far:

• FCC Commissioner Jonathan Adelstein's dissent
• The Media Access Project
• The Benton Foundation

STATEMENT OF COMMISSIONER JONATHAN S. ADELSTEIN, DISSENTING

Unprecedented media consolidation in recent years has allowed giant multinational media conglomerates to dominate growing numbers of local news markets from coast to coast. These media giants have swallowed up locally owned newspapers, TV and radio stations across America. This has presented challenges to both our culture and our democracy by undercutting the American tradition of a local press, rooted in and responsive to their own communities.

Central to our American democracy is a rich and varied supply of news and information. An informed citizenry requires the "uninhibited marketplace of ideas," where there is an open exchange of communications regarding music, news, information and entertainment programming over the public airwaves. Broadcasters, along with newspapers, still produce, disseminate, and ultimately control the news, information, and entertainment programs that most inform the discourse, debate, and the free exchange of ideas. As the Supreme Court has observed, "it is the right of the public to receive suitable access to social, political, esthetic, moral and other ideas and experiences." That right is enshrined in the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.

By moving forward now with relaxation of the newspaper-broadcast cross-ownership rule, the majority ignores the repeated pleas of the American people and their representatives in Congress. There is no time-sensitive issue that compels us to act today. In fact, we were asked by leaders in Congress, including our oversight committees, to defer today and conduct a more inclusive process. That we are moving forward when the voices that matter are asking us to refrain defies the imagination.

The FCC has never attempted such a brazen act of defiance against Congress. Like the Titanic, we are steaming at full speed despite repeated warnings of danger ahead. We should have slowed down rather than put everything at risk.

The reasons for Congressional concern were underscored by the frantic scramble to make major policy changes at the last minute to this item. Late last night, there was a brand new proposal to provide waivers to 42 newspaper-television combinations. And not until early this morning, we learned of massive changes to the waiver standards - an issue of grave concern to me and a number of leaders in Congress. The majority argues this item is the product of long and careful deliberation. But after an odyssey through the Commission and the Courts, massive changes and new, previously unseen waivers were adopted in the dead of night on the eve of a vote. That hardly inspires confidence that this was an open, transparent and deliberative process.

While members of Congress are protesting the Federal Communications Commission's likely approval of a newspaper/television station cross-ownership rule this Tuesday, December 18, five big media companies say the proposal does not go far enough.

At a Senate Commerce Committee hearing on Thursday, FCC Chair Kevin Martin defended his plan to allow entities to own both newspapers and television stations in the top 20 Nielsen defined markets in the United States. Martin cited shrinking advertising revenue for newspapers, leading to less local news reporting, as the reason for the consolidation move.

"Allowing cross-ownership may help to forestall the erosion in local news coverage by enabling companies to share these local news gathering costs across multiple media platforms," Martin told the Committee.

But the Sinclair Broadcast Group, Gannett Inc., Media General, Morris Communications, and Clear Channel all say they want even more FCC lenience in buying up media properties. Over the last two weeks these five corporations have lobbied the Commission for further relaxation of its media ownership rules; a host of comments arrived on December 11th, the last day for public comments on Martin's proposal.

In an issue packed meeting scheduled for December 18th, the Federal Communications Commission will vote on one of its media ownerships rules, to the dismay of the agency's two Democrats.

"This is a huge mistake," Michael Copps and Jonathan Adelstein said in a public statement posted on the agency's Web site today. "The FCC should have heeded the calls of Congress and the American people to conduct a credible process on an issue of this importance to our very democracy. That means providing a meaningful opportunity for public input, rather than the callous disregard exhibited thus far."

For the last two months FCC Chair Kevin Martin has publicly advocated an FCC rule change that would allow entities to own a newspaper and a television station in the top 20 U.S. urban markets. Critics in Congress and elsewhere have accused Martin of rushing the decision. They have also asked that he publish the exact text of the proposed change for public comment before bringing the matter to a vote, something Martin has refused to do.

"We have been engaged in internal discussions to try to get our processes back on track," Copps and Adelstein's statement concludes. "We wish those discussions had led to better results. At this point, given the lateness of the hour, we hope that either we can turn this around internally, or that Congress can save the FCC from itself."

The executives of four top media companies have sent a letter to the Federal Communications Commission warning the agency not to implement "ill considered and unjustified government interventions" in the cable industry.

"We are alarmed at recent press accounts and public statements by FCC officials purporting to find undue concentrations of market power that would justify a wide range of government interventions into the media market place," wrote execs from News Corporation, the Walt Disney Company, Viacom, and NBC Universal on November 20th.

The four content giants delivered the missive to the FCC a week before the agency prepared to vote on whether to accept data suggesting that cable had surpassed the "70/70" rule—cable TV providers have reached 70 percent of households and 70 percent of households subscribe.

Once that threshold is passed, Federal law says that the FCC can pass additional regulations insuring greater diversity in cable transmitted video content. The Commission did not accept the data, but has required all cable companies to submit detailed stats on their subscriber levels over the next two months.

As expected, the Federal Communications Commission agreed to grant Tribune the waivers it needs to complete a deal to sell the company to investor Sam Zell and its own employees. The following statement can be attributed to Benton Foundation Chairman and CEO Charles Benton:

The season of giving began early this year when FCC Chairman Kevin Martin gave a gift worth hundreds of million of dollars to billionaire Sam Zell and the Tribune Company. For the public, however, the decision is the equivalent of three lumps of coal.

There are at least three ways the Tribune sale will negatively impact the public:

1) Jeopardizing the Tribune's delivery of quality news and information: The sale will result in $13 billion debt load for the Tribune, generating economic pressures that may result in layoffs. The media industry has established a pattern of targeting news departments for downsizing when they restructure, making it ever more difficult for news departments to thoroughly and accurately cover the stories that matters to local communities. In fact, shortly after announcing the sale, Tribune announced 250 job cuts in Chicago and Los Angeles. Moreover, according to the Chicago Tribune, Zell has “little background in media and none in journalism,” which could negatively impact the company's historical commitment to journalism.

2) Lost tax revenue: The sale represents a complex corporate restructuring that would allow Tribune to eliminate most of its corporate taxes.

3) Slighting labor: Tribune will not have employee representation on the board of directors. According to the employee's union, "If given a chance, Tribune employee-owners could play a crucial role in enhancing localism and diversity for the benefit of the public served by the Tribune."

The Tribune's request for waivers are based entirely on a claim that the waivers are needed to minimize burdens on Tribune. Its motive for seeking these waivers is entirely
self-serving. Tribune rejected bona fide offers to sell itself because it preferred a particular tax favored restructuring that maximized benefits for its existing shareholders.

But the FCC’s job is not to intervene in the market to protect the private interests of those who volunteer to be FCC licensees. Rather, its job is to enforce its rules and policies designed to promote the public interest. Today, the FCC failed in that role.

The mission of the Benton Foundation is to articulate a public interest vision for the digital age and to demonstrate the value of communications for solving social problems. With offices in Washington DC and Evanston, Illinois, the foundation is a long-time advocate of access, diversity and equity in communications. Benton Foundation Chairman Charles Benton testified at the FCC's hearing on media ownership in September (see http://www.benton.org/node/7242). At the time, the foundation also released "Chicago's Media: Big, But Not Diverse" (see http://www.benton.org/node/7164)

Charles Benton
Benton Foundation
Ave
Evanston, IL 60201
www.benton.org

United States Senators John Warner and Jim Webb have sent the Federal Communications Commission a letter asking the agency to give "every appropriate consideration" to a filing urging further relaxation of the FCC's ban on newspaper/broadcast station co-ownership.

The filing comes from the Media General corporation, which supports FCC Chair Kevin Martin's proposal to allow entities to own newspapers and broadcast stations in the same city, but opposes his plan to limit such cross-ownership to the top 20 United States markets.

"To do this based on some notion of market size, and then actually discriminating against small and mid-sized markets, should be policy anathema to the Commission," Media General wrote to the FCC on November 15th. "The Commission knows well that small and mid-sized markets are already the most at-risk for losing high quality local television news."

Media General owns newspapers and broadcast stations in many mid-sized regions in the southeast, including Virginia. These regions would not be affected by Martin's proposal, although language in his plan would allow the FCC to set aside the market definition "if the public interest, convenience, and necessity would be served."

Dissatisfied with Federal Communications Commission Chair Kevin Martin's proposal to relax the agency's longstanding ban on newspaper/broadcast station co-ownership, the Media General corporation has submitted its own plan.

M. Ann Swanson of Media General met with Monica Desai, Chief of the FCC's Media Bureau yesterday to explain why "repeal of the newspaper/broadcast cross-ownership rule is needed in small- and medium-sized markets" and to outline the southeastern media company's counter-proposal.

On Tuesday, November 13th, FCC Chair Kevin Martin outlined a modification of the rule that would allow co-ownership of newspapers and broadcast stations in the top twenty markets, based on Neilsen ratings. If the transaction included a TV station, the deal would have to leave eight full power TV and/or major newspapers—or "major media voices," as Martin put it—in the market intact.

Critics, including the FCC's two Democrats, quickly noted that the legal language behind the plan contains a clause in which none of Martin's criteria would be applied if "the public interest, convenience, and necessity would be served permitting an entity that owns, operates or controls a daily newspaper to own, operate or control an AM, FM, or TV broadcast station."