Earlier this week Federal Communications Commission Chairman Kevin Martin unveiled his plan to relax a 32-year-old regulation preventing one company from owning both the major daily newspaper and broadcast stations in the same market.
Martin's plan calls for the agency's so-called "cross ownership ban" to be partially relaxed so that the major daily newspapers in the nation's 20 largest markets could purchase a local television or radio station. Martin's plan prohibits those newspapers from purchasing one of the top four televisions stations in their market, however.
When compared to the total dumping of all of the FCC's media ownership rules that was pushed through by Martin's predecessor Michael Powell in 2003 – which Martin, who was an FCC commissioner at the time, supported – this new proposal appears relatively modest. The 2003 relaxation of all the media ownership rules raised a firestorm of protests from the public and was eventually tossed out by a federal court.
But while Martin's proposal is indeed much more limited than Powell's ill-fated plan, in the end it amounts to simply less of a bad idea.
While it does establish some rules that could help maintain the number of independent media outlets and voices in the country's largest markets, it also includes a huge loophole that could allow big companies to easily obtain waivers from the cross-ownership ban in hundreds more markets across the country.
This week a group of public interest groups (including Consumers Union, the sponsor of this blog) submitted evidence to the FCC detailing the devastating impact any further relaxation of the cross-ownership ban would have on the quantity and quality of local news. The group's used the FCC's own data for the research. (Click here to read the full report)
Among the findings:
Cross-ownership crowds out the competition. The presence of a cross-owned station leads the other stations in the market to collectively curtail their news output by about 25 percent.
Cross-owned stations — and markets with cross-owned stations — don't produce more local news.
Cross-owned stations produce slanted news in line with the editorial position of the co-owned newspaper.
"Our findings erase any doubt that Chairman Martin's proposal flies in the face of the public interest," said S. Derek Turner, research director of Free Press and one of the primary authors of the research. "Americans have overwhelmingly spoken out against cross-ownership and in favor of a diversity of media owners and more local news. But what Martin is proposing would have the opposite effect — more consolidation and less local news."
Co-author Mark Cooper, director of research at the Consumer Federation of America, put it this way: "For 30 years, Big Media complained that there was no evidence to support the ban on newspapers owning TV stations in the same market. Now we have the proof."
Despite a huge outpouring of criticism from the public and Congress, Martin has steadfastly maintained he wants the commission to vote on his plan by December 18th, meaning the public will have less than a month to analyze and comment on the controversial proposal.
There is a chance Congress will step in and make Martin slow down, but there is also a good possibility he will get the commission to approve his proposal by his December 18th target date.
At the minimum, Martin needs to take his foot off the gas and let the public have a reasonable period of time to study his plan and make comments to the agency.
It would also be nice if a majority of the commissioners listened to the overwhelming majority of the public who believes any further relaxation of the media ownership rules is bad for their communities and bad for democracy.
