Subject: "The Eleventh Hour for Media Concentration

** **

W. Curtiss Priest, Ph.D.

Center for Information, Technology & Society

466 Pleasant Street Melrose, MA 02176

E-mail: BMSLIB@MIT.EDU, Voice: 781-662-4044, FAX: 781-662-6882

Research Affiliate, MIT, Comparative Media Studies

May 28, 2003

Public Issue #103:

CITS MEDIA WATCH

"The Eleventh Hour for Media Concentration?"

Commentary by Dr. W. Curtiss Priest, Director:

Preface: What can I do? Speak your mind here:

http://gullfoss2.fcc.gov/ecfs/Uhot_docket=1006400938%7C02-277%7CBradcast+Ownershi

p&Send=Continue

[please, if the above URL splits, rejoin as one line (cut and paste

to your browser URL line) ]

You needn't write anymore than "I object."

for further commentary information,

see:

http://gullfoss2.fcc.gov/ecfs/Upload/

***

School may be out for some, but not for the FCC.

On June 2nd a decision of historic proportion will be heard

by the FCC Commissioners on the issue of media ownership.

Those of you, who have visited and listened to the forums

at:

http://www.lpbn.org/default.html

know and understand that almost no one has spoken in favor

of this change in concentrating ownership and almost everyone

has spoken about how essential the diversity in the "voices"

of the media is critical to a healthy society and a healthy

democracy.

And, for those who wish the entire archives, do get the

"raymond" labeled files at this MIT site:

http://biz.mit.edu/fcc/

In recent days both Ed Markey and Robert Kuttner have

spoken out, attempting to elevate the level of discourse

about this critical national issue.

My opinion, as one who has worked on assuring that the public

policy of this nation serves our people, for thirty-five years,

is that further concentration of the media industry is

extremely unwise at this time.

This comes, only on the heals, of destroying various forms

of freedom in hope of securing "Homeland Security."

However our freedoms are abridged, and they certainly should not

be abridged because a few large "players" wish to make the

"all mighty buck" on our blind (?) consumption of media.

[you are what you eat]

WCP

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Some previous issues of the CITS MEDIA WATCH:

http://groups.google.com/groups?q=cits+media+watch&hl=en&scoring=d

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Markey urges FCC to keep media cap

Says overhaul of ownership rules would hurt competition

By Peter J. Howe, Globe Staff, 5/23/2003

With the Federal Communications Commission set to vote June 2 on a

major overhaul of media ownership rules, US Representative Edward J.

Markey of Malden and 13 congressional colleagues yesterday urged the

FCC not to raise a seven-year-old cap on the number of US television

stations a single corporation can own.

The proposed changes, advocated by FCC chairman Michael K. Powell, are

expected to be approved by the commission's Republican majority. They

would lift a near-ban on companies owning a newspaper and television

station in the largest 80 percent of media markets and let companies

own more radio stations in each market. But the most potentially

far-reaching proposal would allow companies to own TV stations

reaching 45 percent of all Americans, up from a 35 percent cap imposed

under the 1996 federal telecommunications law.

Powell and supporters of the changes say they will bring overly

restrictive media ownership rules up to date in an age of

proliferating cable, satellite TV, and Internet news sources that have

undercut the former dominance of the three original US networks.

Markey, the state's senior congressman and ranking Democrat on the

House telecommunications subcommittee, last week introduced a bill

that would block the FCC from changing the ownership caps. In a letter

to the FCC yesterday, Markey and 13 Democratic colleagues argued the

Powell-backed FCC changes would sharply reduce "diversity and

localism" in television programming by allowing more stations to come

under the control of national media.

Powell's proposal, if adopted, would "induce a communications

cannibalism on both the national and local levels," Markey said in an

interview. Markey helped lead the successful fight for the 35 percent

ownership cap in the 1996 telecommunications act.

"Congress set the cap at that level because elected representatives in

the House and Senate desired, in part, to ensure that television

programming decisions remained in the hands of local broadcasters who

had sufficient independence and collective weight to challenge

national TV network decisions made in New York and Los Angeles,"

Markey's letter says. "Maintaining this delicate balance in our

national media mix is healthy for competition and fosters diversity

and localism."

Because of rules dating back to the pre-cable era, when signals of UHF

television stations did not reach as far as VHF stations, UHF

audiences are discounted by half in calculating the ownership cap. As

a result, under the new rules, a single company in theory could own

UHF stations reaching 90 percent of Americans, most of whom get

television over cable.

For the Boston area, the expected FCC changes have fostered

speculation about another marriage of a VHF and UHF station similar to

Viacom Corp.'s ownership of WBZ-TV (Ch. 4) and WSBK (Ch. 38), or a bid

by Rupert Murdoch's News Corp., which owns WFXT-TV (Ch. 25), to buy

back the Boston Herald, which it was forced to sell in 1994 when News

Corp. bought Channel 25.

News Corp. is pursuing a $6.6 billion acquisition of a controlling

stake in DirecTV, the largest US satellite broadcaster. Testifying

before the Senate Commerce Committee in Washington yesterday, Murdoch

was asked whether the company plans to buy more television stations

and answered: "I have no plans for anything other than what I have

before you today."

Markey filed his legislation to preserve the ownership cap along with

Representative John D. Dingell, Democrat of Michigan, and

Representative Richard M. Burr, a North Carolina Republican. A similar

bill is pending in the Senate, but Markey acknowledged it is highly

unlikely either would pass before the June 2 FCC meeting.

Powell reportedly has strong support for the changes from fellow

Republican FCC commissioners Kathleen Q. Abernathy and Kevin J.

Martin. Democrats Jonathan S. Adelstein and Michael J. Copps have

unsuccessfully sought to delay the June 2 vote, saying the matter has

been subject to far too little public discussion.

Peter J. Howe can be reached at howe@globe.com. Material from Globe

wire services was used in this report.

This story ran on page C1 of the Boston Globe on 5/23/2003. c

******************************************************************

Diversity is squashed in FCC rules change

By Robert Kuttner, 5/28/2003

FREE MARKETS, taken to extremes, sometimes lead to monopolies.

Monopolies, in turn, undermine the benefits of free markets --

consumer choice, innovation, and competition to offer a good product

at an attractive price. That's why even the most capitalistic of

societies have laws and regulations against monopolies. If there were

one supermarket chain or one hotel group or one airline, the quality

would soon deteriorate to the level of service in the late Soviet

Union. Consumers would be captive to higher prices, too. Mass media

are a very special kind of product, because they involve not just

commerce but speech. Congress and the courts have long endeavored to

ensure that a wide diversity of voices will be heard.

That is about to change for the worse next week, when the Federal

Communications Commission is expected, by a 3-2 vote, to throw out

several decades of regulation limiting media monopolies. The FCC

chairman, Michael Powell, is trying to ram the vote through before

wider opposition can build, short-circuiting the commission's usual

public comment process. Even if legal, Powell's scheme is awful

policy. If he wins, all three major networks could be owned by the

same conglomerate (which could also be a defense contractor). The

limits on cross-ownership of newspapers and radio and TV stations will

also be lifted, as will the constraints on networks' ability to buy up

local TV stations.

If you want a glimpse into this utopia, consider the deregulation of

radio, which Congress enacted in 1996. Before then, the FCC limited

how many stations any one company could own, and ownership was widely

diversified. It took less than a decade for most US radio stations to

be owned by just three conglomerates.

To see the potential for political mischief, look at what conservative

radio networks did to the Dixie Chicks after their lead singer

criticized President Bush. Cumulus Media banned the Chicks from its 42

country stations and some Clear Channel affiliates promoted

record-trashings. Right-wing media are particularly benefiting from

the new concentration. Clear Channel, with more than 1,200 radio

stations, is dominant in many smaller cities. One of its top

executives is a close business associate of George W. Bush. Shouldn't

liberals just start a radio network of their own? Good idea, but

nearly all of the stations with strong signals are taken, and they're

not for sale. Here's where politics and monopoly commerce intersect.

Meanwhile, Rupert Murdoch owns Fox, the fastest growing cable company,

and just bought the dominant satellite TV company. With his control of

TV programming, Murdoch will soon be in a position to squeeze local

cable operators. And with the FCC's new ruling, Murdoch could also buy

up the major TV networks.

Powell's proposed rules change is a witches' brew that mixes the

interests of big conglomerate business with big right-wing politics.

The more concentrated the media are, the more money ultraconservative

media moguls can make, and the more dissenting voices get squeezed

out.

Powell contends that in the Internet age, there is no need for

regulation to assure diversity because different kinds of media

compete with each other. Radio and TV signals are no longer limited by

a fixed broadcast spectrum, Powell points out. In principle, there is

an infinite variety of news and information sources, on the Web and on

cable TV.

The argument is seductive -- until you realize that each

communications segment dwells in its own separate world. Newspapers

mainly compete with other newspapers -- or don't. Radio competes with

radio, and TV with TV. Even with the Internet, do we really want one

company able to control all the networks? Media play a sacred role in

a democracy -- they are how we get our information as citizens.

Internet-based insurgencies like MoveOn.org and TomPaine.com are

superb counterweights to corporate media concentration, but they are

no substitutes for a diversity of ownership among mainstream media.

As Mark Cooper, appearing for Consumers Union and the Consumer

Federation of America, recently told the FCC, the media are already

too concentrated. But of course, more concentration suits the Bush era

perfectly: more blurring of commerce and news, more opportunities for

a few right-wing insiders to get very rich and dictate news coverage

-- and fewer dissenting voices.

Clarification: Last week I urged Democratic presidential candidates to

embrace bolder health care reforms, arguing that the best approach

would be Medicare For All. I neglected to credit one declared

candidate, Ohio Congressman Dennis Kucinich, for sponsoring just that

strategy.

Robert Kuttner is co-editor of The American Prospect. His column

appears regularly in the Globe.

This story ran on page A19 of the Boston Globe on 5/28/2003. c

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On October 27th, 1998, a new law called The Digital Millennium

available from the Government Printing Office at:

http://frwebgate.access.gpo.gov/cgi-bin/useftp.cgi

?IPaddress=wais.access.gpo.gov&filename=publ304.105

&directory=/diskb/wais/data/105_cong_public_laws

This law helps bring the U.S. into uniformity with the World

Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) treaty.

While a lengthy law, it's main orientation is towards "stored

copyrighted materials" and supports the right for libraries and

archives to contain copyrighted materials for non-commercial purposes.

There is a procedure outlined by which a publisher may ask that

material be removed from an archive, but there are no liabilities on

the part of the archive site for the storage of copyrighted materials.

There is a requirement which every archive site should meet (including

the owners of list servers) to provide contact information to the U.S.

holder can contact.

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respect to maintaining materials with the archive service provider.

In particular, if materials are removed from a site, the subscriber

may notify the archive service with a "counter notification" which

explains why the subscriber believes the material has been removed by

mistake.

This language clearly recognizes the subscriber's 1st Amendment rights

for free speech and provides a remedy should the subscriber believe

his/her free speech rights are being abridged.

It is our opinion that it is extremely unlikely that a copyright

holder will ever contact an archive site's designated agent when

language, as we use, is provided to indicate the "fair use" aspect of

its dissemination and storage.

**********************************************************************

W. Curtiss Priest, Director, CITS

Research Affiliate, Comparative Media Studies, MIT

Center for Information, Technology & Society

466 Pleasant St., Melrose, MA 02176

781-662-4044 BMSLIB@MIT.EDU http://Cybertrails.org

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---------------------------------05-28-2003-------------------------------------

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FCC PLAN TO ALTER MEDIA RULES SPURS GROWING DEBATE

With the FCC's June 2nd vote on media ownership less than a week away, Frank

Ahrens of The Washington Post offers an excellent summary of the proceedings

to this point. The piece includes a review of the statements and activities

of those in favor of and against the proposed changes, and a discussion of

the legal and economic bases for both sides' position. Ahrens also

highlights, on two separate occasions, comments submitted by individual

citizens, a topic on which the Benton Foundation opined last week. The

article concludes with an affirmation of what many in the public already

feared: the FCC has turned a deaf ear to such comments. "You don't govern

just by polls and surveys," said FCC Chairman Michael Powell. "We have to

exercise difficult judgments and abide by the law."

[SOURCE: The Washington Post; AUTHOR: Frank Ahrens]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A46442-2003May27.html

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---------------------------------05-28-2003-------------------------------------

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FCC Plan to Alter Media Rules Spurs Growing Debate

By Frank Ahrens Washington Post Staff Writer Wednesday, May 28, 2003;

Page A01

Substantial grass-roots resistance to the Federal Communications

Commission's plans to relax or eliminate several major media ownership

rules has been building in recent weeks, turning a number-crunching

bureaucratic process into a growing debate on free speech.

On June 2, the five-member commission is scheduled to vote on changes

that would allow broadcast networks to buy more television stations

and would lift the 28-year-old ban preventing newspapers from buying

television stations in the same city.

Hundreds of thousands of e-mails and postcards are urging the FCC to

put off a decision.

Those who favor relaxing and lifting the rules -- mainly, media

corporations and the FCC's three Republican members -- say the

regulations are no longer legally enforceable and have been made

obsolete by the explosion of cable television channels and Web sites,

which provide consumers with more sources of information than when the

ownership rules were crafted years ago.

On the other side are the two Democratic commissioners, Michael J.

Copps and Jonathan S. Adelstein, several public-interest groups and

organizations that say what is at stake is nothing less than the

health of the democracy. More consolidation, they say, will lead to

fewer voices, making it difficult for minority viewpoints to be heard.

Unexpected alliances have formed between liberal and conservative

groups, opposing further deregulation.

In recent days, the FCC has been inundated with hundreds of thousands

of e-mails and e-petitions. MoveOn.org, a public-interest organization

founded by two Silicon Valley entrepreneurs, says it has collected

170,000 signatures on a petition to the FCC, urging the agency to keep

the rules in place.

The group is joining forces with the public-interest group Common

Cause, and this week it launched a $250,000 newspaper and television

advertising campaign against the changes, including ads in the New

York Times and The Washington Post.

Members of the National Rifle Association have sent 300,000 postcards

demanding the same. The FCC's Web site has received more than 9,000

e-mail comments over recent months from individuals who claim no

affiliation with corporations or associations. Of those, according to

a musician's group that recently tallied the filings, only 11 comments

support relaxing the media rules. Members of Congress are reporting

that their offices are receiving substantial e-mail traffic as well.

"It seems to me that instead of serving the public interest, you are

really serving the interests of a few corporate fiefdoms that want to

control more of what we see and hear," one person wrote in an e-mail

to FCC Chairman Michael K. Powell.

"The airwaves are open to the public and should not be controlled by a

few very rich and powerful media moguls who are only interested in

their own gain and/or political influence," wrote another.

Others have spoken out as well. USA Interactive chief executive Barry

Diller, who controlled broad media holdings before focusing on

Internet businesses, favored keeping ownership limits in a speech

before the April convention of the National Association of

Broadcasters. "The conventional wisdom is wrong," said Diller, a

director of The Washington Post Co. "We need more regulation, not

less."

The outcry is in part a response to the public comments of FCC

chairman Powell and fellow Republican commissioners Kathleen Q.

Abernathy and Kevin J. Martin, who have said they favor changing the

ownership rules. Many of the regulations were crafted when there were

three commercial television networks, no Internet and no cable. The

GOP commissioners argue that by selectively culling agency rules they

can preserve the viability of free, over-the-air television while

protecting certain markets. FCC staff, for example, has recommended

lifting the ban on newspaper-television cross-ownership in all but the

smallest cities, where there tends to be little competition to begin

with.

Even if media ownership rules are relaxed, proposed mergers would

still have to meet the FCC's public-interest standard and pass the

Justice Department's antitrust test.

"Nobody believes any more strongly than I do that unfettered

consolidation is not a good thing," Powell said in an interview

Friday. "When we're done, we're going to have significant and

meaningful limits on concentration."