FCC Democrats Won’t Vote on Media Ownership until Minorities Addressed
The two FCC Democrats don’t want the commissioners to vote on a broad media ownership rulemaking until the agency acts comprehensively on issues affecting minorities, they told a Rainbow PUSH Coalition meeting. Commissioners Jonathan Adelstein and Michael Copps said the agency should move fast to form an independent panel (CD Sept 24 p1) assigned to find ways to raise the disproportionately low ownership of radio, TV stations and other media assets by minorities. Only after the agency adopts that panel’s recommendations should the FCC vote on an order that Chairman Kevin Martin is poised to circulate soon on broadcast ownership limits, they said.
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Martin is open to the idea of a task force, but doesn’t want to delay helping minorities, he said at the conference. Asked by Rainbow President Jessie Jackson Sr. whether he would form such a panel, Martin was cautiously supportive. “I am happy to have an independent task force giving us ideas,” he said. “But neither do I think we can’t move forward now with other proposals.”
Adelstein lamented that in the three weeks since he proposed the panel nothing has happened. He floated the plan at an FCC media ownership hearing Sept. 20 in Chicago. “We need to move fast to get this done,” he said. “We at the FCC have a responsibility to do something about this legacy of neglect” of minorities. “Before we act on media ownership rules, we need to implement the recommendations of the panel.” Copps agreed. “We have no business voting on any rule change in ownership - no business - until we do something on minority media ownership,” he said. “Then we will be ready to act.”
Martin wants action on the ownership rulemaking. The public has had time to offer ideas on minority ownership, he later told reporters. He has suggested deadlines for commissioners to vote on a media ownership rule rewrite, he said, not offering details. “We've had a significant amount of time for people to comment,” he said. “It is time for us to come to some kind of timeframe.” Other FCC officials have said Martin wants to circulate an order in the first quarter to lift a ban on common ownership of a broadcaster and newspaper in a market and to relax other ownership limits.
The FCC’s diversity committee is a good forum for ownership proposals, Martin said. “I don’t think having another committee to make suggestions is a bad thing, but I don’t think there should be a delay of the commission’s proceedings,” he added. “Indeed, several of the issues that I have discussed today would actually facilitate diversity of viewpoints and entrants. We need to be able move forward on some things even if we don’t have every recommendation that everyone might have.”
Martin used the event to urge that commissioners approve several plans that involve the broadcast and cable industries and that he said would help minorities. Many of those ideas have stirred skepticism among executives of both industries. They include a rulemaking notice Martin has circulated asking whether broadcasters should lease digital spectrum to small businesses, women and minorities so they can get programs shown on cable systems. He compared the leased spectrum proposal to low-power FM stations, used by churches, minority groups and others. This approach gives minorities an inexpensive way to distribute their own programming. The FCC previously approved low-power licenses.
Minorities also would benefit if the FCC barred programmers that own cable systems from forcing cable operators to carry those networks in exchange for letting the operators air signals of the same media company’s TV stations, Martin said. Such “tying” of permission to carry broadcast stations with cable channels consumes capacity, discouraging minority programmers from getting carriage on cable systems, he said. Tying is “leading to even bigger and bigger packages of channels, whether consumers want it or not,” he said. But the commission may not be able to force cable operators to sell channels individually, a priority of Martin’s. “We have more limited authority on the retail end to implement the a la carte solution,” the chairman said. “The market on the content side is dysfunctional.” Martin also took a swipe at rising cable rates.
Another potential boon to minorities is an order recently circulated on the eighth floor that would prohibit owners of apartment buildings and other housing developments from entering into exclusive deals for pay TV with cable operators and other companies, Martin said, noting that more minorities live in apartments than Americans overall. Martin publicly confirmed for the first time that the order would ban future exclusives and existing contracts. Retroactive limits are needed because “there are examples of companies who have signed perpetual deals,” he told reporters. “If we don’t take some kind of step immediately, there would be some people who live in an apartment building who would never” get to choose their pay-TV company, he added. “The cable industry needs more competition.” - Jonathan Make