Economy & Trade, Headlines, North America

U.S.: Senate Vote Slows Media Giants

Jim Lobe

WASHINGTON, Sep 16 2003 (IPS) - In a move hailed by activists and civil-rights groups, the U.S. Senate voted 55-40 Tuesday to rescind new rules backed by the administration of President George W. Bush that would have enabled giant U.S. companies to increase their domination of the media market.

A dozen Republicans joined a strong majority of Democrats to approve a rare ”measure of disapproval” that would annul regulations approved by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) in June.

The FCC’s Republican majority, led by Chairman Michael Powell, approved new rules that would permit television networks to own local stations that collectively reach 45 percent of the national audience. The previous rule placed the ownership cap at 35 percent.

They would also permit a single company to own as many as three television stations, eight radio stations, and one cable operator in one media market. The older rules were substantially more restrictive, particularly in forbidding the same company from owning a television station and a newspaper in the same market.

Groups opposed to the FCC’s rules, which range across the political spectrum, applauded the Senate outcome.

”We believe in the ‘free market of ideas’ and that the health of our nation’s democracy depends on the continued existence of a diversity of viewpoints in the public domain,” declared a statement released by the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights (LCCR), a coalition that includes major women’s and minority groups.

”Diversity of voices, not merely a variety of programming, is essential, which is why LCCR organisations, including groups like the National Association for the Advancement of Coloured People (NAACP), the National Organisation for Women (NOW), the National Council of La Raza, and the National Partnership of Women and Families, strongly oppose the FCC’s decision to relax the rules that have historically restricted the nation’s largest media conglomerates from growing even bigger,” the LCCR said.

Peter Hart, a media analyst at New York-based Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting, said the Senate vote marked an ”enormous victory” for activists and citizens who tried to press the FCC to consider the public interest in its rulemaking.

”Millions of people contacted the FCC to oppose these new rules, and in the end, the FCC ignored them. So now, Congress is stepping in and honouring that public outcry,” he told IPS.

”Politically, this issue of media concentration has gone from being a snoozer to a real liability for the administration,” he added. ”This kind of activist intervention has never had such impact on the FCC, which has been able to write and re-write rules on behalf of big media companies. That era seems to be over.”

The increasing domination of ever-fewer media companies has spurred growing public concern, particularly since Congress moved to deregulate radio ownership in the mid-1990s, and a business that was known for its diversity changed virtually overnight.

For example, one company, Clear Channel, went from owning 40 radio stations in 1996 to more than 1,200 in 2003, giving it the largest market share in U.S. radio. The political consequences of such a concentration of ownership were made clear earlier this year when Clear Channel sponsored a number of ”patriotic” events around the nation to support Bush’s war on Iraq.

At the same time, Powell, the FCC chairman and the son of Secretary of State Colin Powell, made it clear that he had no objections to increasing media concentration.

Older regulations dating back to the 1930s and 1940s, according to Powell and his backers, had been rendered obsolete by new technologies like cable television, satellite broadcasting and the Internet, which ensured that the public retained access to a variety of voices and views.

His critics, who ranged from the National Rifle Association (NRA) to the National Conference of Catholic Bishops to the Consumers Union, strongly disagreed, arguing that further media consolidation would not only increase the influence of a dwindling number of media voices some of which, like Rupert Murdoch’s companies, propagated strong political viewpoints.

”Without regulations that prohibit media monopolies, a very few corporations will control our access to media and entertainment,” said Eli Pariser of MoveOn.org, an anti-war advocacy group that has helped lead the campaign against the FCC rules.

”Those corporations will likely have ideological biases. It could have disastrous effects on democracy, which at its core relies on an informed citizenry.”

According to Robert McChesney, author of ‘Rich Media Poor Democracy’, the media giants are following a two-fold strategy: first, get bigger and dominate your market to such an extent that no competitor can buy you out. Disney and Time Warner (owners of ABC and CNN, respectively), for example, almost tripled in size in the 1990s.

Second, the companies have diversified into several media industries, such as film production, book publishing, music, TV, and networks, magazines and newspapers, to enhance their dominance and create ”synergy” between all parts of their media empires.

The critics received a major boost earlier this month when a U.S. federal appeals court put the new FCC rules on hold in order to consider lawsuits brought against them by a range of plaintiffs.

For his part, Powell objected strongly to the Senate taking up the issue, warning that repealing the new rules ”would only muddy the media regulatory waters” and bring ”chaos”, rather than clarity, to the regulatory process.

His warnings are likely to be heard with greater sympathy in the House of Representatives, where the Republican leadership is generally considered more responsive to Bush, who hinted several days ago that he might veto any repeal if it comes to his desk.

But the fact that so much of the public appears to be concerned about the issue, and that some smaller, traditionally Republican media companies have opposed the new rules, could mute opposition, say activists.

”Powell must be stunned by what happened,” said FAIR’s Hart. ”It shows you that years of grassroots activism paid off and that this issue has finally got the attention of a pretty wide spectrum of people.”

”This was the Senate’s first opportunity to declare its position on media consolidation, and it gave a bipartisan ‘no’ to media moguls and a ‘yes’ to the American public,” said Chelli Pingree, president of Common Cause and former governor of Maine.

”The House now has an obligation to America to take up the issue and gives members the opportunity to correct the FCC’s mistake.”