WASHINGTON (CNS) -- Media consolidation is the issue that won't go away.
As a shrinking number of owners controls an ever-greater share of the pie, even the federal government sits up and takes notice.
The Catholic Church in the United States -- its access to the public airwaves first limited 20 years ago with the revocation of the Fairness Doctrine and its attendant public service requirements -- has had an interest in the issue because federally licensed commercial broadcasters have even further restricted access to the earliest time slots on Sunday morning, when Masses are usually televised. Even then the church must pay for the airtime in some instances.
The concerns, though, are not limited to television. Radio, newspapers and other media are now the subject of complaints not only from those who consume the products made for those outlets, but from those making the products.
Congress tried to pass a new telecommunications bill in 2006. It would have been the first reworking of federal law in the field since the 1996 act that permitted greater ownership concentration. But lawmakers could not agree on a bill before the election, and when Democrats won control of both houses of Congress in the November election, the appetite to pass a new bill waned severely.
At a Dec. 11 Federal Communications Commission hearing on media ownership in Nashville, Tenn., Michael Copps, a Catholic and one of two Democratic FCC members, drew applause several times during his remarks.
When the FCC tried in 2003 to deregulate media ownership, which would have had the effect of concentrating media ownership even more -- Copps was in the minority on that vote -- citizens, a federal court and Congress rose up to say "no way," he said to applause. He added the FCC should hold broadcasters to the bargain that for using the nation's airwaves they must serve the public interest. He also said that news is "not just another business."
Playing to the Nashville crowd, which included country music stalwarts Porter Wagoner and Naomi Judd giving testimony, Copps criticized homogenized radio music playlists, and said the FCC must take action against payola -- payment from record companies for songs played on the radio -- wherever it is found. "People don't have enough say about how their airwaves are being used and it's time to do something about it," he added.
"If you relax ownership rules more than what they are today," Wagoner told the FCC, "you will not only strip the airwaves away from the American public, but also continue to change the way we will do business in the recording industry, which will be bad for not only recording artists, but also for the very companies who seek to ease these ownership restrictions."
One of the principal complaints in the aftermath of the 1996 Telecommunications Act was that some media had gotten too big. One owner was able to own several stations in the same market. Clear Channel used the relaxed ownership restrictions to build a chain of 1,200 stations, and became the target of severe criticism.
Clear Channel announced in November it would sell all but 448 of its stations to a consortium of private-equity groups. Those 448 stations, mostly in smaller markets, would be shopped to other buyers.
Much the same happened in the newspaper business earlier in 2006 when Knight Ridder, the nation's second-largest newspaper chain, sold its 32 papers to McClatchy Corp., another newspaper chain. To avoid an antitrust review, McClatchy then sold 12 of its newly acquired newspapers, almost all of them to existing newspaper chains.
The Tribune Co., with newspapers, TV, radio and the Chicago Cubs in its corporate portfolio, is trying to sell the company as a whole. A piecemeal sale could raise antitrust concerns and tax liabilities.
Media companies that were hoping to grow larger via either relaxed FCC restrictions or a congressional green light have had to reassess their business plans as the debt incurred in making their acquisitions starts eating into cash flow.
Already one TV chain, Granite Broadcasters, filed for bankruptcy protection. Granite has 11 stations in major U.S. cities. When the WB and UPN networks merged to form the CW network, former affiliates owned by CBS Corp. and Tribune got the CW franchises, giving short notice for other stations needing prime-time programming. Granite lost its WB affiliates in San Francisco and Detroit, and a sale of the two stations fell through.
"I've spent my entire life getting to the truth in three and a half minutes," said songwriter Rick Carnes, president of the Songwriters Guild of America, at the FCC hearing. "I can wrap up my thoughts in five words: Big radio is bad radio." He added, "It's time to lower the ownership caps to pre-1996 levels."
The Future of Music Coalition issued a study in December showing that the top four radio owners have half of all listeners, and that 15 formats make up three-fourths of radio programming.
The FCC has extended until Jan. 16 the deadline for receiving comments about media consolidation. |