Fewer voices, fewer choices?
Debate rages over an FCC plan to relax ownership rules on big media
Allowing these giants to gain bigger shares of TV markets and acquire local newspapers will reduce the number of independent voices and drown out smaller, homegrown competitors, says Chris Murray, legislative counsel at Consumers Union. "The effect of that is a massive elimination of locally produced and locally relevant news content."
Big newspaper chains like the Tribune Co., publisher of the Los Angeles Times, the Chicago Tribune, and 10 other dailies, and Gannett, which owns USA Today and 99 other dailies, also worry the anti-consolidation crowd. If those companies can own TV stations in their markets, they say, consumers will hear the same opinions whether they turn on the local news or flip open the local paper.
Former FCC General Counsel Chris Wright disagrees. "Could local TV news get any worse?" he asks. "I think ownership of TV stations by newspapers could only improve TV news." And Mel Karmazin, president of CBS-owner Viacom, recently told a congressional panel, "It is utterly unsupportable and unrealistic that broadcasters should be handcuffed in their attempts to compete for consumers."
However, foes of media concentration inevitably point to radio as an example of deregulation run amok. "The fear is that if you loosen these rules more, what happened in radio will happen in TV," says Legg Mason regulatory analyst David Kaut. After the FCC raised radio station ownership caps in 1996, Clear Channel Communications, a radio company based in San Antonio, ate up the spectrum, growing from a modest 43 radio stations in 1995 to more than 1,200 today, in 200 markets. The firm also is a big promoter of concerts. That, say critics, has given the radio behemoth the ability to bully artists and homogenize radio content across the nation, so folks in Seattle get exactly the same listening experience as those in Cincinnati.
For some, the implications are even more dire--a threat to free speech it- self. When Cumulus Media, the nation's second-largest radio chain, disapproved of the Dixie Chicks' Natalie Maines's comments criticizing President Bush and the war in Iraq, the country trio was shut out of its 42 country stations. It's that kind of editorial power that organizations as diverse as the NRA and NOW find anathema and are mobilizing to block.
But the vote and the drama may not end this week. Some critics of the FCC's approach have said they will go to Congress for relief. And there, some legislators are sympathetic. Several senators have promised close scrutiny of any rule changes, and even legislation to reverse the FCC's actions if need be. No matter which TV or radio station or newspaper you turn to for your news, you probably haven't heard the last of this debate.
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