FCC reassessing media ownership rules

Radio news from the USA

Postby radiofan » Tue Oct 24, 2006 6:21 pm

FCC reassessing media ownership rules
Critics say current regulations inspire bland homogeneity

Joe Garofoli, Chronicle Staff Writer

Tuesday, October 24, 2006


As the Federal Communications Commission reviews its rules on media ownership, several studies released Monday say the current regulations breed bland music offerings on the radio, an environment where few women and minorities are in positions of power and news coverage that ignores issues people of color care about.

FCC spokesman David Fiske said the studies and commentary would be "read and placed in the public record," but declined to comment specifically on the findings of any of the studies from media watchdog, nonpartisan and interest groups. They submitted studies to meet Monday's deadline for input on the proposed rule changes. The deadline for the public to respond to this first round of comments is Dec. 21.

The commission has set no timetable about when it will vote on any changes, Fiske said.

Over the next several months, however, the commission will ask the public what it thinks of several rules governing how many television and radio stations an entity can own in one market; the commission's limitations on owning a full-service broadcast station and a newspaper in the same market; and its regulations on radio and television station cross-ownership. The commission will also ask the public whether it should retain its ban on mergers between the top four broadcast networks.

In 2003, the commission voted to make it easier for a single company to own a radio station, newspaper and TV station in the same region. In a rare bipartisan showing, both the House and the Senate voted to oppose the FCC's decision, and hundreds of thousands of people contacted the commission to complain.

In 2004, a federal court overturned the change that would have permitted greater ownership concentration of television and radio station in a single market. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit in Philadelphia also found that while the FCC was within its rights to roll back a ban on a single company owning both a TV station and a newspaper in the same region, it asked the FCC to review its decision.

The FCC is seeking input in response to both the court's request, as well as part of its quadrennial review of its media ownership policy as required by the 1996 Telecommunications Act.

That act changed the media landscape for the worse, said Jeff Perlstein, executive director of San Francisco watchdog Media Alliance.

The results, Perlstein said, were more homogenized offerings in the media marketplace and less local content.

And even though the digital media revolution has enabled millions of consumers to contribute to that marketplace through their own podcasts, blogs, citizen journalism offerings and iPod playlists -- Perlstein said most people still get their news through local TV, radio and newspapers.

Eighty-eight percent of respondents to a survey by a collection of organizations led by Consumers Union, the publisher of Consumer Reports, found that consumers rely on their local television outlets, radio stations, and daily and weekly newspapers for their hometown news.

"The Commission should adopt media ownership rules that encourage a diversity of viewpoints, cultivate localism and preserve competitive outlets," stated the Consumers Union group in letter filed Monday with the FCC.

Further consolidation will also decrease the already paltry number of minority- and female-owned media outlets, according to a study led Carolyn M. Byerly, an associate professor of journalism at Howard University.

According to FCC data, of the 12,844 radio and television stations that filed the correct reports, women owned 3.4 percent and minorities 3.6 percent of the outlets. A majority of them were in rural areas and small towns, Byerly found.

In a separate study of the news consumption patterns of 196 mostly African American residents of the Washington, D.C., area, Byerly found that of those who got their news from radio, many preferred minority-owned stations because "they give you the only accurate reporting," Byerly wrote. She also found that 12 percent of African Americans perceived "widespread media bias" against their communities. White homicide victims, for example, were perceived to be given more sympathetic support, and there was little coverage of community events and issues in African American communities.

In radio, the airwaves have been homogenizing since the 1996 lifting of a ban on the number of radio stations one company could own nationally, said Peter DiCola, a University of Michigan researcher who submitted a radio study to the FCC Monday. The studies by DiCola and Byerly were funded by the Benton Foundation and the nonpartisan Social Science Research Council.

DiCola said the law consolidated the dial into the hands of a few conglomerates. But instead of using their dominant market share to offer listeners a diverse playlist, large station groups often run the same cookie-cutter offerings of classic rock and talk radio, said DiCola, who is research director of the Future of Music Coalition.

Now it's harder to find jazz, blues, classical and gospel, DiCola said.

"It is 100 percent certain that things have not gotten better since (passage of the Telecommunications Act)," DiCola said.


E-mail Joe Garofoli at jgarofoli@sfchronicle.com.

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