The proposal, which was challenged in court the last time it came up, was the most contentious piece of an updating of the nation’s media ownership rules. Congress requires the F.C.C. to review the rules every four years.
Public interest groups and a departing member of the commission, Michael J. Copps, expressed concerns that the newspaper-broadcast rule change could cause more consolidation in the media industry, in which round after round of stations have been sold to bigger companies.
“In the vast majority of cases, I do not believe that newspaper-broadcast cross-ownership advances the public interest,” Mr. Copps, a Democrat, said in a statement. “It means fewer voices in the community, less localism in the industry and steep transactional costs that all too often lead to down-sized or shuttered newsrooms and fired journalists. Our media, and our public policy, need to head in a different direction.”
The changes to the rule would affect only the 20 most populous markets in the country, where the F.C.C. perceives there to be more competition among media outlets. Commissioner Robert M. McDowell, a Republican, suggested that the rule is outdated at a time when people increasingly get news on the unregulated Internet.
“The notion that broadcasters may distribute their content through radio, television, the Internet, mobile devices and other unforeseen portals, but must be prohibited by law from printing the same content on the medium of newsprint, seems anachronistic at best,” Mr. McDowell said in a statement. He suggested that the newspaper-broadcast rule should be loosened further.
Already, companies can and do seek waivers to own both a newspaper and a station in the same market. The News Corporation, for instance, owns The New York Post and two television stations in the New York City market. Allowing more companies to do so could create new bidders for newspapers, which as a whole have suffered more severely than local TV stations in the last decade.
The F.C.C. proposed to leave most of the other rules about TV and radio station ownership in place with minor modifications. It intends to continue to cap the number of television and radio stations that a company can own in a single market. It does, however, intend to remove a rule about the cross-ownership of television and radio stations.
The commission invited suggestions about how to ensure that stations continue to supply local news. A federal study presented to the F.C.C. this year about the state of the news media found that TV stations have been decreasing their staffs while increasing their volume of news, potentially hindering the quality of that news.
When the F.C.C. suggested a similar loosening of the newspaper-broadcast rule in 2007, public interest groups and others fought the proposal and succeeded in having it thrown out by a federal appeals court. At the time, the court faulted the commission for not giving the public sufficient time to comment on the proposal.
“The F.C.C. should be working to remedy the mistakes of past administrations — not repeating them,” said Craig Aaron, the chief executive of the media reform group Free Press.
He also criticized the commission for, he said, failing to “meaningfully address the issue of ownership diversity.”
Mignon L. Clyburn, a Democratic commissioner, said she desired more data about female and minority ownership of stations.
Mr. Copps said in his statement that “in a country now nearly one third minority, it is shocking, and I think embarrassing, that people of color own barely more than 3 percent of full-power commercial television stations.” He urged the F.C.C. to act quickly to address ownership diversity issues.
Mr. Copps is a staunch advocate for more independent media. “This is the time for citizens far and wide to tell us what they really think and to offer their comments and proposals for an enhanced media,” he said.
Upon Mr. Copps’s departure at the end of the year, the normally five-member F.C.C. will have three members. Meredith Attwell Baker, a Republican commissioner, stepped down in June to become a senior vice president for Comcast. In November, President Obama nominated two replacements, Jessica Rosenworcel, a Democrat, and Ajit Varadaraj Pai, a Republican.
Article source: http://feeds.nytimes.com/click.phdo?i=e57fb97f915334548e1302608b708a1d
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