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Backers say FCC rule changes aid survival of free TV

http://www.jewishworldreview.com | (KRT) Despite the political firestorm it set off, Kathleen Abernathy doesn't doubt she did the right thing in voting to approve controversial changes in the nation's media-ownership rules, among them a revision that lets companies own more television stations.

Abernathy, one of three Federal Communications Commissioners who voted for the new rules, believes that only an affirmative vote on the matter was consistent with federal law, court rulings and the greater good.

"I am completely comfortable with where we ended up, and I actually think that from a public-interest perspective, what we did is fine," Abernathy said.

Still, she did not completely anticipate the intensity of bipartisan opposition to the changes from Congress and grass-roots organizations across the political spectrum after the FCC decision in June.

Fueled by the outrage, the House late last month approved a spending bill containing language to keep the old TV-station restrictions in place. The vote was 400-21.

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So heated was the rhetoric during the congressional debate, one lawmaker warned his colleagues they would be facing an irate public armed with "pitch forks and torches" if they didn't restore the old rules.

"There was part of me that expected this because the media are so core to how we define ourselves as a country," Abernathy said. "I understood it could be emotionally charged. I didn't quite recognize just how emotionally charged."

Like Abernathy, supporters of the modified rules say the passionate public denunciations don't change their view that revising the rules was necessary and good for the public as well as media companies.

What's difficult, they say, is that while their opponents can boil down their argument to a sound bite - big is bad - the story the pro-deregulation side must tell is more complex and requires explaining media business economics.

They concede they could have made a more game attempt to sway Congress and the public by better arguing their case. Even so, they say too much has been made of the one-sided House vote.

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The vote was on a spending bill that funded the Justice and State Departments as well as the FCC, they said. Lawmakers are traditionally loath to vote against such bills for fear that in some re-election campaign, an opponent could accuse them of voting against a popular program, like the war on terrorism, because that is funded in part by the Justice Department.

Proponents of the changes will soon have another chance at persuasion because the Senate is expected to consider legislation in September to restore the former ownership limits.

Two rule changes incurred most of the wrath of FCC opponents: raising what's called the national audience cap for broadcast companies and modifying the newspaper-broadcast cross-ownership rule.

The FCC raised the size of the potential national television audience a single company could reach through its stations to 45 percent from 35 percent, a move that would allow companies to purchase more stations. The agency also lifted the ban on newspaper-broadcast cross ownership. Tribune Co., owner of the Chicago Tribune, was among companies that had lobbied for ending that restriction.

After the House vote, FCC Chairman Michael Powell defended those decisions in an opinion piece in The New York Times.

"Some say the problem is media concentration, and point out that only five companies control 80 percent of what we see and hear," he wrote. "In reality, those five companies own only 25 percent of more than 300 broadcast, satellite and cable channels, but because of their popularity, 80 percent of the viewing audience chooses to watch them."

To B. Robert Okun, an NBC vice president and its chief Washington lobbyist, what the opponents didn't understand was that to the networks a higher national audience cap that would allow them to buy more television stations was essential to the future of free broadcast TV.

Cable television giants such as AOL Time Warner and TCI don't have ownership limits like the networks. Nor do they have content restrictions. So they can carry the racy "Sex and the City," off-limits to broadcast networks due to indecency standards. That in part is helping cable television snare an ever-growing portion of the audience and advertisers.

"There's a lot of educating to do. Part of where we slipped up is the split in the industry," Okun said.

The networks bolted from the National Association of Broadcasters because of a power struggle between the networks and non-network station owners, creating a confusing internecine battle among industry lobbyists that hurt the networks' message.

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The FCC's ending of the cross-ownership ban also has come under attack with Senate members vowing to reverse it. The new rule would allow a newspaper company to purchase broadcast outlets in the same city, transactions prohibited under the old rule.

John Sturm, president of the Newspaper Association of America, said the cross-ownership arrangements do not justify the fear in Congress and elsewhere that such ownership would harm consumers in cities where a newspaper owns a broadcaster, such as allegations of anti-competitive behavior.

While a move to restore the cross-ownership ban didn't survive in the House, it is alive and well in the Senate. That will keep Sturm busy until the Senate likely votes on the matter after Labor Day.

FCC officials in favor of the rules changes - three Republican commissioners outvoted the two Democrats - say the key point critics miss is that the agency had no choice but to amend the regulations.

In the deregulatory 1996 Telecommunications Act, Congress instructed the FCC to justify its media ownership rules every two years. Abernathy said the commission was just doing what Congress told it to do.

Furthermore, federal judges have ruled the agency's ownership regulations appeared arbitrary and that the agency needed a stronger rationale and much more data to buttress them.

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