POWELL SAYS A STAY ON MEDIA OWNERSHIP RULES IS UNWARRANTED

Powell said the new initiative would look, not at ownership, but at possible rules to be imposed on owners to ensure they were serving their local communities. “Structural ownership rules are very technical and economic,” Powell said: “The ownership caps are relatively a clumsy and indirect way to promote some of the concerns expressed by the public… and this is an effort to address those concerns in a much more constructive way.” He said the ownership caps were “not on the table, unless we get a change in direction from Congress on them.” Asked why he shouldn’t put a stay on the rules at least until Congress decided whether to pass legislation that would roll back the caps to their pre-June 2 level, Powell said it was “far from clear exactly what all 535 members of Congress and the United States President would prefer or not prefer.” He said he thought it would be destabilizing to the media if they were held in a sort of limbo.

Comr. Copps, one of Powell’s biggest critics and who held a series of public hearings in large part on his own during the media ownership proceeding, called Powell’s action “a day late and a dollar short. It highlights the failures of the recent decision to dismantle ownership protections. To say protecting localism was not germane to that decision boggles the mind.” Copps said Powell should have heeded the e-mails, calls and other communications before June 2. By refusing to stay the rules, the FCC will “guarantee a rash of mergers, acquisitions and swaps that cannot be undone because the genie will be out of the bottle long before this new task force reports,” Copps said. He called Powell’s effort “a diversionary tactic.”

Asked whether he had made a political miscalculation, Powell said, “I don’t think it’s a mistake at all. I think it’s a learning experience, and I think that the ownership rules were based on the 1996 statute and they were based on court opinions as to what they required. I completely believe that the rules that were passed in June were accurate, well-balanced and reflective of those particular directives, but in the process, we learned something. We learned about a deep-seated anxiety in the American public about a commitment to local values and local communities.” He said the new effort was not politically motivated, but acknowledged consulting with some members of Congress, including Sen. McCain (R-Ariz.), on the new initiative. “Something in the public interest, to my mind, is never too late. We don’t concern ourselves with the critics. We concern ourselves with being responsive to the public,” Powell said.

Specifically, Powell said he would soon open a settlement window for low-power FM applications and would take steps to speed the activation of licensing more low- power FM radio stations, for instance waiving processing rules to permit mutually exclusive applications to use available frequencies. He said those noncommercial educational stations typically served local neighborhoods, schools, churches and other niche audiences.

Powell’s new Localism Task Force, to be led by Deputy Gen. Counsel Michele Ellison and Deputy Media Bureau Chief Robert Ratcliffe, will gather data and hold public hearings to gather grass-roots information, as well as conduct empirical studies on localism. The group will address broadcasters’ public interest obligations and how best to review local performance, including during the license renewal process. The group will advise the Commission and Congress on how best to address localism, including possible legislative solutions.

At Powell’s direction, the Media Bureau will produce a Notice of Inquiry (NOI) on localism in Sept. to operate in tandem with the Localism Task Force. The NOI will seek comment on a wide range of FCC policies and procedures, asking, among other things, whether various localism-based rules continue to work effectively and whether they should be changed. Powell acknowledged that any changes embraced by the Commission still might require a rulemaking. He said the Commission did “suspect that there are problems in aspects of the media marketplace” but that at this point, that was just anecdotal evidence. He said large broadcast groups such as Sinclair and Post-Newsweek owned more TV stations than the networks and might have more power over local news and programming, even if they, too, were operating from a distance.

Sen. Dorgan (D-N.D.), who has sponsored legislation (S. Res. 17) that would overturn the FCC’s changes in media ownership rules, said the FCC should have studied localism before it issued its media ownership rules on June 2. “The Chairman’s statements today do nothing to remove the need to revoke those rules,” Dorgan said. “If the Chairman now wants to examine those issues, he can simply start over after the Senate acts in early September to revoke the new rules, or the Chairman can revoke them himself until he’s completed his study on localism.” With several Republicans, including Commerce Committee Chmn. McCain (R-Ariz.), supporting Dorgan’s “Congressional veto” of the FCC rules, many have given the “resolution of disapproval” a good chance to pass. The Senate is scheduled to vote on the measure in early Sept.

House Commerce Committee Chmn. Tauzin (R-La.) said the FCC should make sure that low power radio stations don’t create interference problems for existing license holders. “Low power radio stations provide an important community service, but the FCC will accomplish nothing if it solves one problem only to create another,” Tauzin said. He described the task force as “an important first step.”

NAB said it welcomed a review of the public service performed “day in and day out by free, over-the-air broadcasters. As was demonstrated just last week during the power crisis in the Northeast, there is no business in America more committed to keeping citizens informed than local radio and television stations.”

Consumer Federation of America (CFA) Research Dir. Mark Cooper said Powell’s move wouldn’t stem the political firestorm the June 2 ruling created. “Talking about new rules to protect media localism, particularly when those rules creep into the area of content regulation, is merely an effort to divert attention from badly reasoned and badly written ownership rules that won’t stand up in court. More importantly, these rules will not stand in the court of public opinion,” Cooper said. “Chairman Powell’s suggestion that the millions of cards and letters he received on this issue expressed concern for localism and not media concentration is simply wrong and is refuted both by public opinion polls as well as the comments and testimony presented to the FCC.”

Media Access Project (MAP) said Powell was taking some welcome steps and it applauded his efforts to expedite the creation of more low-power FM stations, but none of it changed MAP’s opposition to the new rules. “The value of the new localism task force is fatally undermined by Chairman Powell’s refusal to stay the effectiveness of the ownership rules,” MAP said. “The idea that ownership rules are unrelated to localism is absurd.” MAP also had a series of suggestions on how the FCC could improve the deployment of new low-power FM stations, including keeping applicants more informed and reevaluating radio translator policies to eliminate noncommercial translators that didn’t originate local programming.

The Minority Media & Telecom Council (MMTC) said it applauded the FCC’s localism and diversity initiatives, calling them “well thought out and constructive. They deserve the full support and participation of the civil rights and public interest communities.” However, the MMTC urged the Commission to review the final reports of the Diversity Committee and Localism Task Force “before” fully implementing its new media ownership rules.

Jonathan Rintels, exec. dir., Center for the Creative Community, said that although his group was pleased Powell “at long last acknowledges the public’s well-founded concerns, the Commission should have studied media concentration before and not after issuing new rules ensuring even more media concentration.” Rintels said unless the FCC stayed the effective date of its new rules, what Powell proposed would hand the major networks “the key to the media henhouse, then studying how many chickens they eat.”

Powell’s study of localism comes “18 months too late,” said James Goodmon, Capitol Bcstg. CEO. “With the new media ownership rules set to take effect in two weeks, a study now will not remove public and congressional concern about his new ownership rules,” said Goodmon, who opposes further relaxation of ownership rules. Goodmon also criticized Powell for a “certain arrogance” in his presentation of the ownership issue and for saying that the issue has become too emotional and that people should “calm down.” Powell should “issue a stay until a genuine effort is made to consider the total impact of all of the ownership rules and the relationship between ownership and localism. Do that Mr. Powell, and then we can all calm down,” Goodmon said in a statement.

The Parents TV Council (PTC) also urged Powell to “pull the plug” on media ownership rules. PTC Pres. Brent Bozell said if Powell had truly heard the public concerns about localism, there would be no need to form an FCC task force on the topic. Bozell said the FCC should use this task force to figure out how to begin its “legally mandated job of enforcing the decency standard.”

Reached at her home, Powell’s former media adviser, Susan Eid, explained that structural ownership rules were “very different” from behavioral rules and she didn’t believe the initiative was an attempt to backtrack. “I believe we struck the right balance in terms of promoting diversity, localism and competition. However, concerns about localism may very well lend themselves to behavioral rules,” she said. Eid resigned just a few weeks ago.

Powell also announced that his recently announced Federal Advisory Committee on Diversity in the Digital Age would be headed by Julia Johnson, a former chairman of the Fla. PSC. The committee’s first meeting is scheduled for Sept. 29.