FCC Ownership Plan Faces Vote

By Frank Ahrens

WASHINGTON — The Federal Communications Commission is pushing ahead to pass a rule today that would allow more consolidation of local media ownership in the nation’s largest cities, despite the fresh threat of a legislative rebuke and continued protests from advocacy groups.

The rule, proposed by Chairman Kevin J. Martin, a Republican, has been assailed by members of his own commission, denounced by a unanimous vote of the Senate Commerce Committee and called harmful to media diversity by a number of groups who say Martin is rushing it through without adequate public comment.

Martin’s action is backed by the White House, though, which over the weekend successfully headed off an attempt by House Democrats to deny the FCC money to implement the new rule, according to a number of sources.

Approval of the media-ownership plan would partially lift a 32- year-old ban that prevents one company from owning a newspaper and television or radio station in the same city. Under Martin’s plan, a newspaper could own one television or radio station in the nation’s 20 largest media markets, assuming certain conditions are met. A newspaper could not own one of the top-four rated television stations, for instance. Companies such as Tribune and Richmond’s Media General have argued for the rule change.

In the nation’s approximately 190 other media markets, including Cincinnati, a company could petition the FCC to allow a merger between a newspaper and broadcast station, but the deal would have to pass tests to be approved. Opponents of the plan say the tests are so vague as to be meaningless.

Martin is showing some compromise on the so-called “cross- ownership” rule. Through Monday afternoon, he was working with fellow commissioners and advocacy groups to “put some teeth” in the tests, said one FCC official. For instance, Martin suggested that, if a newspaper and television station were allowed to merge, the station should have to provide at least six to seven hours of news programming per week to guarantee coverage of local news.

“The agency has a responsibility to grapple with difficult issues,” Martin said in an interview Monday. “This is the only media ownership rule that has never been fully reviewed.”

Martin is thought to have the three votes required from the five- person commission to pass the rule, with Republicans Robert M. McDowell and Deborah Taylor Tate expected to join him. Democratic commissioners Michael J. Copps and Jonathan S. Adelstein plan to vote against it.

Also today, the FCC is expected to approve a national ownership cap on cable companies. Under the proposed rule, no cable company could have more than 30 percent of all U.S. cable subscribers. Comcast, the nation’s largest cable company, has 27 percent.

Martin has called the existing cross-ownership rule, enacted before the rise of cable and satellite television and the Internet, obsolete and ripe for revision. He is backed by the Newspaper Association of America, the largest trade group of U.S. newspapers. The group says struggling newspapers could be helped by being allowed to buy television stations, whose advertising revenue could help pay for the cost of newsgathering.

Text of fax box follows:

In the tri-state

The proposed rule change will have no immediate effect in Greater Cincinnati.

Though E.W. Scripps Co. owns both The Post and WCPO-TV (Channel 9), The Post will be out of business Jan. 1.

Gannett Co. briefly owned both the Cincinnati Enquirer and WLWT- TV (Channel 5) when it acquired Multimedia Inc. in a $1.7 billion deal in July 1995.

Forced to divest the TV station, Gannett swapped WLWT and KOCO- TV in Oklahoma City for two stations owned by Argyle Communications, now Hearst-Argyle Television.

Originally published by Washington Post.

(c) 2007 Cincinnati Post. Provided by ProQuest Information and Learning. All rights Reserved.