The FCC maintains a ‘cozy relationship’ with the telecom and broa...

in a new report. That was in addition to $2 million a year in official travel funded by taxpayers. “The report… reveals more than ever before just how incestuous the relationship is between the Federal Communications Commission and the broadcasting and cable industries it is supposed to regulate. The idea that the FCC can render an objective, independent judgment about media ownership is laughable,” said Center Exec. Dir. Charles Lewis. An FCC spokesman said it was important for Commission officials to get outside the Beltway to exchange information with a wide variety of groups and to get a wide variety of opinions. He said some of the trips are sponsored by universities and some were for technical conferences. In the report itself, Comr. Abernathy said she believed in meeting with an array of people and such trips provided crucial opportunities for information-gathering. The report also quoted an FCC ethics official as saying each trip was scrutinized to determine whether it was legal and “seemly.” Other FCC officials said those trips were important for learning what each industry was doing. The report said FCC commissioners and agency staffers attended hundreds of conventions, conferences and other events all over the world, including Paris, Hong Kong and Rio de Janeiro, staying in such high-priced hotels as the Bellagio in Las Vegas. The report said the top destination was Las Vegas, with 330 trips, 2nd was New Orleans with 173, 3rd was N.Y. with 102, and 4th was London, with 98. Other popular destinations included Orlando, San Francisco, Miami, Anchorage, Palm Springs, Buenos Aires and Beijing. The biggest industry sponsor of the trips was the NAB, which paid $191,472 for 206 FCC officials at its events. The center also unveiled a 65,000-record, searchable database containing ownership information on virtually every radio station, TV station, cable system and telephone company in America. In its report, the center analyzed media ownership in the home towns of the 5 FCC commissioners. Of the 203 commercial radio stations in those 5 home towns, 50 are owned by 4 publicly traded, out-of-state radio conglomerates and 27 by radio giant Clear Channel Communications. The cable systems in the 5 communities are controlled by 4 companies -- AOL Time Warner, Advance/Newhouse, Insight -- and one locally owned company. Of the 20 network affiliates in the 5 cities, 14 are owned by out-of-state companies, including 2 each by News Corp. and Hearst-Argyle. The center said the FCC was too dependent on information from the companies it regulated in making its regulatory decisions.