May 14, 2003 3 min read

WASHINGTON (AP) – Media executives told lawmakers Tuesday that decades-old restrictions on ownership of newspapers and television and radio stations are outdated and unnecessary for maintaining diverse and local views in news and entertainment. The five-member Federal Communications Commission is scheduled to vote June 2 on sweeping changes in ownership rules. The agency’s two Democratic commissioners on Tuesday asked Chairman Michael Powell to delay the vote by a month to give them more time to study the complex proposal.

Powell said he would consider the request, though he previously has said there is no reason for a delay. Powell and the two other Republicans on the commission favor loosening regulations, an outcome sought by many large media companies, including the four major television networks and the Newspaper Association of America.

Consumer groups and smaller media outlets say changing the rules will prompt more mergers that will limit the number of companies controlling what people see, hear and read.

Mel Karmazin, president of Viacom, which owns CBS and UPN, told the Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee that current ownership rules leave broadcasters “handcuffed in their attempts to compete for consumers at a time when Americans are bombarded with media choices via technologies never dreamed of a decade ago.”

The FCC is considering allowing a single company to own TV stations that reach 45 percent of U.S. households instead of the current 35 percent.

James Goodmon, president of Capitol Broadcasting Co., which owns and operates five TV stations in North Carolina and South Carolina, told lawmakers that raising the cap will allow networks to gobble up more smaller broadcasters. He said network-owned stations would lack the local control that allowed his company to refuse to run several reality programs, including Fox’s “Married By America.”

“We said we’re going to stop at demeaning marriage and the family,” he said. “There’s never been a network-owned station that pre-empted a network station for content reasons.”

Goodmon also said the cap is misleading because companies are allowed to count only half of the households in markets where they own only UHF stations, effectively doubling the cap. UHF stations are treated differently because their broadcasts have less range.

The proposal before the FCC also would allow companies to own more TV stations in larger markets and eliminate many of the restrictions on companies owning combinations of newspapers and TV and radio stations in the same city.

“Even the smallest markets containing newspaper-broadcast combinations remain vibrantly diverse and competitive,” said William Dean Singleton, former chairman of the Newspaper Association of America and chief executive of MediaNews Group Inc., which publishes 50 daily newspapers.

Frank Blethen, publisher of The Seattle Times, told senators there is no business reason for lifting the restrictions.

“Just wait for the monopolization feeding frenzy if cross-ownership is repealed,” he said.

Jonathan Adelstein, one of the two FCC Democrats who asked Powell to delay the vote, told reporters that the FCC should take a more gradual approach to easing media ownership rules. The government could study limited mergers to understand the effect on diversity and competition, he said.

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