Media Ownership Research Fact Sheet
Mergers between newspapers and TV stations in the same market (also known as "cross-ownership") are front and center in the ongoing media ownership proceeding at the Federal Communications Commission.
The ban on mergers between newspapers and TV stations in the same market is the longest standing of the rules that the Commission is considering.
Television and newspapers are the two most important sources of local news and information by far. The Internet is far less important for local news. Those who do use the Internet for local news use the websites of the local newspaper and TV stations.
The Commission proposed the most radical change in this limit on mergers between newspapers and TV stations in the same market. It would allow newspaper-TV combinations in virtually every city in America.
This research shows that mergers between newspapers and TV stations in the same market pose a grave threat to democratic discourse in almost every market studied. In antitrust terms, these mergers result in increases in market concentration that raise significant competitive concerns and are likely to create or enhance market power.
According to a recently revealed 2004 FCC research report, local ownership of television stations adds almost five and one-half minutes of total news to broadcasts and more than three minutes of "on-location" news, when compared to local stations owned by large national media conglomerates. The Commission had destroyed and suppressed this FCC staff study, funded by tax-payers, because it refuted with facts then-FCC Chairman Michael K. Powell's public claims that loosening limits on media ownership would somehow improve local news coverage.
Taken together, the FCC and MDC research studies clearly demonstrate that additional mergers in local markets would significantly harm citizens in those communities and is not in the public interest.
While new media mergers may make media moguls wealthier, local communities will be poorer.
In terms of the Communications Act and First Amendment jurisprudence, newspaper-TV combinations allowed under the FCC's proposed new rules would dominate the local market, raising concerns about undue economic concentration and inordinate influence over public opinion.
Historical evidence and logic suggest that many of the mergers analyzed as taking place under these new FCC rules would indeed take place. This is not a hypothetical exercise.
Policymakers and the public need to be aware of these dire consequences should the ban on newspaper-TV combinations be lifted.
Diversity of viewpoints and localism in media, two of our nation's most important media policy goals, are critical to the health of our local communities. Democratic participation and discourse are key to addressing local issues such as crime, schools and traffic. Local elections and civic participation determine not only how our own local communities work, but how our communities' concerns are heard in our states' and nation's capitals. More media mergers will further reduce already inadequate coverage of local issues and opinions, sapping the vigor of civic participation and debate.
The Media and Democracy Coalition is an unincorporated affiliation of national, state and local consumer, public interest, organized labor and media reform organizations representing tens of millions of Americans. It is committed to promoting vigorous competition, diversity of viewpoints, and localism in our national and local media. MDC accepts no corporate funding. Rather, its funding comes from foundations concerned about issues at the nexus of media and democracy. More information about the Coalition, its members, as well as these research reports, is available at the Coalition's website, www.media-democracy.net.
Media Ownership – General Talking Points
At the behest of a handful of huge conglomerates that control much of our nation's media, the FCC is now preparing to relax or eliminate limits on how much local and national media these companies can own. Another "feeding frenzy" of mergers and consolidation will surely result.
More media consolidation is not in the public interest. Here's why:
- Media consolidation harms democracy. Media is our public "town square." When one company owns the town newspaper, and local TV and radio stations, and perhaps the local cable company, and the most visited local websites on the Internet, it controls the "town square." That gives monopolistic media the power to not just report on, but to influence and dictate politics. Or, increasingly, monopolistic media chooses to not report on politics, preventing the public from learning what's going on in their communities and curbing democratic discourse.
- Media consolidation limits free expression. According to the Supreme Court, the First Amendment depends upon "an uninhibited marketplace of ideas in which truth will prevail." Fewer voices in the marketplace of ideas means less chance that truth will prevail, and more chance that divergent views won't be heard.
- Media consolidation eliminates diversity in media. According to the Supreme Court, our democracy depends upon hearing a "wide diversity of viewpoints from a multiplicity of sources." Concentrated media prevents diverse groups from accessing the media and having their viewpoints heard or their stories told. Minorities own fewer broadcast stations and other media properties.
- Media consolidation homogenizes culture. Conglomerates typically offer only "lowest common denominator" news and entertainment programming over the public airwaves, ignoring or drowning out independent, controversial, cutting-edge, or nonconformist ideas, artists, and programs. Many in the music business say that Clear Channel's expansion from 40 stations around the nation in 1996 to over 1200 today destroyed commercial radio, making it homogenized and boring. In the TV business, conglomerates have denied independent programmers access to the airwaves, driving such creative producers as those who made All in the Family, The Cosby Show, Murphy Brown, and so many other favorites out of the television business.
- Media consolidation hurts communities. Out-of-town conglomerates do not provide the same level of community-oriented news, entertainment, and sports programming as local owners. Less political coverage and less civic discussion result. Community jobs in media and other industries are eliminated, while prices for subscriptions and advertising increase.
- Media consolidation does not produce economic benefits or better service. After the last "feeding frenzy" of media consolidation, promised benefits of better local service, more efficiency, "synergy," etc. never materialized. Even the President of Time Warner, the poster child for failed "synergy" after its disastrous hookup with AOL, now proclaims that "synergy is bullshit."
- Media consolidation is not necessary to preserve "failing" or "dying" newspapers. Newspaper mogul William Dean Singleton, former Chair of the Newspaper Association of America, reports the newspaper business is "still a very, very, very profitable piece of what we do and will be for a long, long time."
- Media consolidation may promote indecent and objectionable content on the airwaves. Research indicates there is a link between the takeover of locally-owned radio by absentee-owner national conglomerates and the increase in public complaints about objectionable content on their local airwaves.
- Media consolidation's ills are not "cured" by the Internet. The vast majority of Americans still get their news, information, and entertainment via the Old Media of newspapers, television, and radio. And when it comes to getting local news, Internet users overwhelmingly surf to the websites of local newspapers, TV and radio stations. With all those local community Old and New Media news and information sources under one management - a management that likely will no longer be local - you may hear many local voices, but they will be controlled by just one out-of-town ventriloquist. Importantly, the FCC and Congress have eliminated "Net Neutrality" and turned over control of your web-surfing to Big Cable and Big Telco broadband providers, who can then sell it to the highest bidder. The highest bidder may well be your local community's media oligopolist, resulting in even greater concentration of local news, sports, entertainment, and other information and programming.
- Media consolidation is a nonpartisan issue. As Brent Bozell of the conservative Parents Television Council has quipped, "When so many disparate organizations -- groups ranging from the Catholic Conference to Common Cause, from the Family Research Council and the NRA to Move On, the Writers Guild and NOW -- when all of us are united on an issue, then one of two things has happened. Either the earth has spun off its axis and we have all lost our minds, or there is universal support for a concept." That concept: "Protect Free Expression, Diverse and Independent Voices, and Democracy. Stop Media Consolidation."
- Media consolidation is not supported by the public or the courts. In 2003, when then- FCC Chairman Michael K. Powell first tried to eliminate media ownership limits, the Commission was deluged with over 3 million comments from citizens of all political persuasions. Over 99 percent of the comments demanded that the Commission not permit further media consolidation. Nevertheless, by a 3-2 vote, the Commission ignored those protests and voted to permit more consolidation. Ultimately - fortunately - but perhaps not surprisingly -- the U.S. Court of Appeals found the FCC's actions "arbitrary and capricious" and overturned them. One reason cited by the court: the FCC's failure to take into account the public's overwhelming disapproval of further media consolidation.
