Bigger Media Blues

Tom Paine -- The FCC's decision was the product of a corrupt process that was awash in special-interest money, and that saw industries that are supposed to be regulated telling the regulators how to proceed. The Center for Public Integrity recently revealed that over the past eight years, media companies and their associations paid for 2,500 travel junkets by FCC commissioners and staffers, at a cost of $2.8 million. The Center also revealed that FCC commissioners, their aides and top staffers hosted 71 off-the-record meetings with industry executives in the months leading up to today's vote. At the same time, only five meetings were held with organizations representing the public interest.

Citizens across the United States are furious with FCC Chairman Powell for limiting public input by scheduling only one official hearing on the rules changes, by withholding the changes until just three weeks before the vote, by neglecting to order adequate studies of the impact of these rule changes, and by refusing a request from Commissioners Michael Copps and Jonathan Adelstein -- as well as more than 120 members of Congress -- for a delay in the vote.

FCC Commissioners Copps and Adelstein voted against the rule changes, and highlighted the fact that more than 95 percent of comments filed by members of the public to the FCC opposed making the changes. In the final week before the vote, close to 500,000 communications were delivered to the FCC by groups ranging from MoveOn.org to the National Rifle Association, all of which expressed firm opposition. As Commissioner Adelstein said, "Of the hundreds of citizens I heard from, many extremely articulate, not one person stood up to say, 'I want to see even more concentration in our media ownership.' Not one."

FCC Chairman Powell said he wanted to produce rules that were consistent and that would survive legal scrutiny. But no legal issues were settled. Instead, Chairman Powell has forced adoption of rules that violate the mandate from Congress contained in the 1996 Telecommunications Act. That act said that media ownership rules should only be eliminated or relaxed if new communication technologies generated an increase in bona fide commercial competition that would justify eliminating or relaxing the ownership rules. Market conditions, researched extensively by the Consumers Federation of America, Consumers Union and independent scholars have not changed in such a way to justify the elimination of media ownership rules.

More than 100 members of the House and roughly 20 members of the Senate asked the FCC not to approve these rule changes at this time. The first step in this process could begin as early as June 4, when members of the FCC are expected to appear before the Senate Commerce Committee. A majority of the members of that committee asked the commission to delay the June 2 vote. They have a responsibility to take action to restore the rules.

USAToday -- Even Media Moguls have Second Thoughts

"Media companies have gotten so large and concentrated that an independent voice has an almost impossible time getting started in any kind of meaningful way, and that's a great tragedy for our country," [Ted] Turner told a business audience in April.

Add Turner to the growing ranks of media executives whose newfound respect for the law of unintended consequences — both financial and social — has given them second thoughts about the media world they helped create.

Executives' perception of consolidation "went from slam-dunk to mixed bag — and it's very much a mixed bag," says Sanford C. Bernstein analyst Tom Wolzien.

"I promised Congress and others that if they let us consolidate, new technologies would get developed quicker and (cable) rates would actually go down," says Leo Hindery, who helped to turn AT&T Broadband into the then-No. 1 cable company and now runs the New York Yankees' YES Network regional sports service. "It's not clear to me that the latter has occurred at all — it's quite the opposite."

Several also now worry about the social consequences of another wave of mergers.

"It isn't that there aren't a lot of voices," says Barry Diller, who helped to build Rupert Murdoch's Fox network and now runs online giant USA Interactive. "There just aren't independent voices. What I don't understand is why there isn't more anger."