ADELSTEIN SAYS FCC IS MOVING IN A ‘DANGEROUS’ DIRECTION
FCC Comrs. Adelstein and Copps submitted a formal request to Chmn. Powell Tues. that he bow to a long-standing custom at the agency -- that commissioners who want to delay a particular vote by a month generally are given that deference. The request came one day after the FCC Media Bureau submitted a more than 200-page document to the 5 commissioners that would loosen many of the regulations that keep large media companies from growing larger.
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Powell said earlier this month that the vote on the proceeding would be June 2 and that it essentially was set in stone (CD May 2 p1). Asked then if he would acquiesce to a request for a delay by a commissioner, he said he wouldn’t allow delay for the sake of delay and would have to have substantive reasons for granting such a request. On Tues., a spokesman for Powell said he would “think long and hard” on the request by Copps and Adelstein, consult with his colleagues and then respond promptly.
Speaking at a news conference Tues., Adelstein said Powell told him he would consider the request but gave no indication of whether he would grant it. Copps was traveling and unavailable for comment, but the request was made jointly with Adelstein.
Comr. Martin issued a news release objecting to any delay. “Many of the rulemakings incorporated into this proceeding have been pending for over a year,” he said. “It is past time for the Commission to act. I think the Commission should go forward with the scheduled vote on June 2.” Comr. Abernathy agreed with Martin that “for both legal and policy reasons we should move forward with the June 2nd meeting.” She said the FCC had a statutory obligation to review the broadcast ownership rules every 2 years and already was behind schedule: “If we don'’t act, the courts may step in themselves… I am satisfied that we have the information and the input we need to make a sound, judicially sustainable decision that will benefit the public interest.”
House Commerce Committee spokesman Ken Johnson said the FCC was well overdue on issuing a ruling and the FCC commissioners hadn’t presented a compelling argument for delaying a decision even further. “There is more programming aimed at African American audiences, for Hispanics, women, sports fans and even home shoppers,” Johnson said. “The rules for black-and-white TV won’t work in today’s Internet world.”
Adelstein and Copps also asked that the agency put the proposed rules out for public comment. They would prefer a rulemaking or a public briefing of some kind, Adelstein said. Asked why he or Copps didn’t just unilaterally release the document, he said that would be against Commission rules and he wanted to work within the system to try to alter the outcome. Adelstein said a delay was necessary “because of the scope of this proceeding and its importance to the American people and the profound impact that it could have on the shape of our media landscape for generations to come.”
Reacting to the substance of the ownership proposals, Adelstein said he was “very concerned about the ability for increased concentration in our media.” He declined to disclose the details of the proposals, although he inadvertently confirmed that the bureau had recommended the national audience reach cap for networks be raised to 45% from 35%, as we reported (CD May 13 p1). He also said allowing triopolies in various markets would be “a major departure from our policy past and I think it’s something that deserves to be looked at extremely cautiously.”
Prefacing his comments by saying he was trying to keep an open mind and hadn’t read the entire document, Adelstein said he was concerned that the Commission was moving too quickly toward deregulation and that he would be more apt to embrace an incremental approach that would allow perhaps small steps toward deregulation, rather than all at once. Given that the 3 Republican members of the Commission already appear to be aligned, Adelstein said he was hopeful that there still was some room for negotiation: “There may be room on aspects of it. On other aspects, there probably isn’t.” He questioned why the Commission should be in a rush when the biennial review naturally required it to revisit the rules in another 2 years.
Adelstein said he would have difficulty supporting the diversity index in the document. Generally, he said he could be comfortable with a diversity index, but the question was whether this one had “enough teeth in it that makes it something that prevents a level of concentration that I think is greater than would serve the public interest.” He said he was concerned that this one went further than he would like in terms of deregulation and that the idea of the index was mixed with some people’s ideals of what they wished to see as outcomes. “I think that to some extent weakened it and made it less of a preventative of things that I think are dangerous in terms of the level of concentration that can be allowed in certain markets,” he said.
Predicting the proposed rules would set off a flurry of mergers, Adelstein said: “I've heard from people in the marketplace that investment bankers are already soliciting them for deals, based on what’s going to happen. There’s a number of deals that have already been made on a handshake that are just ready to go as soon as these rules are finalized. I expect you're going to see a rapid wave of mergers that take place fairly quickly after this decision. People are already planning for that… They've been waiting on this for years.”
Adelstein said he and Copps had another public hearing scheduled for May 21 in Atlanta and members of the public should continue to submit their comments to the FCC. He said he gave great weight to the tradition of allowing commissioners to push back an item on the agenda. “I think it is a very good precedent, and I think it would be an unfortunate precedent if he [Powell] didn’t do it,” he said. “I think our reasons aren’t frivolous ones.”
In a Tues. letter to the 5 commissioners, NAB urged them to “recognize the urgent need for reform” to allow TV duopolies in medium and small markets and made a new pitch for its “10/10” ownership proposal (CD Jan 17 p1). NAB said the existing record in the ownership proceeding “indisputably demonstrates” that the “voice test” used by the FCC wasn’t the best method for ruling on duopolies because it failed to take into account the fate of “financially struggling” stations in small markets that most needed “more efficient ownership patterns.” Assn. said small-market TV stations were facing “unprecedented financial pressures,” brought on by “overwhelming” costs of digital transition, increased competition and reductions in network compensation. Permitting common ownership of 2 TV stations in small markets would provide “greatly needed financial relief” and should be based on audience share rather than a voice test, NAB said.