FCC poised to ease media ownership limits - GoFuckYourself.com

FillmoreSlim · 06-02-2003, 01:40 AM

WASHINGTON, June 2 (Reuters) - New rules allowing media companies to expand their reach are expected to be approved on Monday by a divided U.S. Federal Communications Commission amid fears the move may reduce the variety of viewpoints available to consumers.

After months of debate and lobbying by companies and consumer advocates, the three Republican commissioners are likely to approve the new rules despite the objections of the two Democrats on the panel. Their meeting is due to start at 9:30 a.m. EDT (1330 GMT).

The new rules could lead to the television networks gobbling up more local stations while other changes will allow companies to own two stations in more markets, and newspapers to buy television stations that serve the same markets.

"The changes ... affect everybody, but I don't think you're going to see a big rush of big deals -- mostly trades, swaps, one-off deals between companies," said Blair Levin, a former FCC official and now analyst at Legg Mason.

The push to change the decades-old media ownership limits follows federal appeals court criticism that the FCC had not justified the need for them.

FCC Chairman Michael Powell brokered a compromise on relaxing the rules with his fellow Republican commissioners that he believes reflects the proliferation of new cable and Internet sources for entertainment, information and news.

But FCC Commissioners Jonathan Adelstein and Michael Copps, both Democrats, have sided with a wide array of interest groups who oppose relaxing the rules for fear that independent voices would be silenced and local reporting would suffer.

Media conglomerates lobbied the FCC for even looser rules or their elimination. Many industry experts think the new rules are almost certain to be challenged in court.

At its meeting, the FCC is expected to continue a ban on mergers among the four largest television networks -- ABC owned by Walt Disney Co. DIS.N , CBS owned by Viacom Inc. VIAb.N , News Corp.'s NCP.AX Fox network and NBC, run by General Electric GE.N .

The FCC is likely to leave alone limits on radio stations, but modify how the markets are defined to prevent a company from owning all the stations that serve a city.

Clear Channel Communications Inc. CCU.N owns almost 1,200 and has been pilloried by lawmakers and consumer groups for dominating the airwaves in small towns and cities. While the FCC will take action to prevent that from happening again, the agency is not expected to try to break the company's grip.

FillmoreSlim · 06-02-2003, 01:47 AM

FCC Chairman Defends Easing of Rules
Mon Jun 2, 1:36 AM ET Add U.S. Government - AP to My Yahoo!

By DAVID HO, Associated Press Writer

WASHINGTON - A move to ease rules governing ownership of newspapers and television and radio stations will not lead to "a massive wave of mergers," Federal Communications Commission (news - web sites) Chairman Michael Powell says.

In a vote set for Monday, Powell and two fellow Republicans on the five-member commission were expected to allow companies to buy more television stations and, in some cases, own both a newspaper and a broadcast station in the same city.

Diverse interests opposed to deregulation say relaxed rules will kick off a merger frenzy, putting a few large companies in control of what people see, hear and read. They say that will homogenize viewpoints and diminish local emphasis in news and entertainment.

Powell said Sunday the changes are more modest than critics contend.

"This is not a complete deregulation of the media," Powell said on ABC's "This Week." "There will be rules and restrictions. Everything that a media company would like to do is not going to be permitted."

Powell said some industry consolidation will follow the changes, but "just because somebody can buy something doesn't mean it makes strategic or financial sense to do so."

"I don't particularly believe there will be a massive wave of mergers," he said.

The rules expected to be eased include a limitation on a company owning television stations reaching more than 35 percent of U.S. households and restrictions on a single company owning combinations of newspapers and TV and radio stations in the same city. Another rule facing an overhaul limits local TV ownership so a company can control, at most, two stations in a market.

The government adopted the ownership rules between 1941 and 1975 to encourage competition and prevent monopoly control of the media.

A 1996 law requires the FCC (news - web sites) to study ownership rules every two years and repeal or modify regulations determined to be no longer in the public interest. Many changes proposed since then were sent back to the FCC after court challenges.

Many media companies say outdated rules have limited their growth and competitiveness in a world changed by cable television, satellite broadcasts and the Internet.

As the vote approached, opposition intensified. Critics bought television and newspaper ads, wrote letters and e-mails, and demonstrated outside television stations owned by major media companies.

Some ads have taken on Rupert Murdoch, whose News Corp. owns Fox News Channel, 20th Century Fox TV and film studios, the New York Post and other media properties. Murdoch told a Senate committee last month he has no plan for a media buying spree after the changes, other than his proposed acquisition of DirecTV, the nation's largest satellite television provider.

The critics of eased rules include consumer advocates, civil rights and religious groups, small broadcasters, writers, musicians, academicians and the National Rifle Association. They say most people still get news mainly from television and newspapers, and combining the two is dangerous because those entities will not monitor each other and provide differing opinions.

Large newspaper companies such as Tribune Co. and Gannett Inc. disagree.

"Newspaper-owned television stations program more and better news and public affairs than any other stations," said John Sturm, president of the Newspaper Association of America.

News Corp. and Viacom Inc., which owns CBS and UPN, stand to benefit from a higher national TV ownership cap because mergers have left them above the 35 percent level. Those companies, along with NBC, persuaded an appeals court last year to reject that cap and send it back to the FCC for revision.

Lawmakers have split mainly along party lines. Democrats demand more public scrutiny of the changes while Republicans support Powell. Some lawmakers critical of the FCC have proposed legislation to counter relaxed regulations.

FillmoreSlim · 06-02-2003, 01:48 AM

YES: It Is About Providing Better Service to Consumers

By William Dean Singleton
The Salt Lake Tribune

I am pleased to appear today to discuss the compelling reasons for eliminating the Federal Communications Commission's long-outdated and counterproductive ban on newspaper/ broadcast cross-ownership.
The ban is the last vestige of a series of "one outlet per customer" local media-ownership restrictions adopted by the FCC in the 1960s and 1970s. Of these limitations, only the newspaper/broadcast cross-ownership rule has remained completely unchanged. All of the commission's other restrictions on broadcast ownership have been either eliminated or significantly relaxed over the years. Only newspapers have been completely barred from participating in the broadcast markets of their communities.
This inaction on the part of the FCC is not for a lack of evidence. To the contrary, in four exhaustive proceedings over the past six years, the agency has accumulated a mountain of evidence supporting the repeal of the cross-ownership ban.
In 1975, when the FCC adopted the ban, many newspapers were allowed to keep their broadcast stations. Forty or so of these grandfathered communities still exist. These communities take the guesswork out of eliminating the ban. They have provided the commission with illustrative case studies of the substantial public-interest benefits that will result from repeal. Representing the full gamut of market sizes, the record shows that they have consistently provided their communities with unmatched levels of service.
At the same time, there is simply no evidence that the grandfathered situations have threatened competition in their local markets. To the contrary, there is substantial evidence showing that even the smallest markets containing newspaper/broadcast combinations remain vibrantly diverse and competitive.
The evidence offered by grandfathered communities further shows that co-owned outlets generally present diverse perspectives on news and informational issues. Jointly owned newspapers and broadcast stations have strong economic and professional incentives to, and do in practice, avoid coordinating their viewpoints. Local autonomy and editorial freedom is the tradition of newspapers, and the same principles apply to the operation of local stations owned by newspapers.
The evidence presented by newspaper publishers and other parties has been confirmed by several recent studies. A study commissioned by the FCC specifically found that "affiliates co-owned with newspapers experience noticeably greater success under our measures of quality and quantity of local news programming than other network affiliates." The results of a five-year study released by the Project for Excellence in Journalism at Columbia University echoes these findings. That study concluded that "stations in cross-ownership situations were more than twice as likely to receive an 'A' grade than were other stations" and that, on the whole, these stations "were more likely to do stories that focused on important community issues, [and] more likely to provide a wide mix of opinions . . . ."
Let me offer what I believe would happen close to home in my newspaper markets:
Fairbanks, Alaska, is perhaps the most remote, isolated community in America. There are five commercial television stations in the market. All struggle financially. Under today's rules, my newspaper thrives with an award-winning news presentation, while the television stations struggle to broadcast even a small amount of local news. There are no commercial news radio stations. In central and northern Alaska, many communities cannot get my newspaper delivered, but they can get radio and television. They deserve more.
In Eureka, Calif., in another remote section of the country, there are four commercial television stations. The strongest station has a news staff of 11, and the other three don't produce substantive local newscasts at all. Imagine the community service we could provide by putting these newspaper resources behind television and radio news, especially if we purchase a station that produces no news today.
In Pittsfield, Mass., I own a newspaper that covers the western quadrant of Massachusetts. There is no television station there, and never has been. If this rule is changed, we could put a station on the air that provided local TV news for the first time ever.
Newspapers will add new resources to struggling television and radio enterprises, and those broadcast outlets will strengthen newspapers as the number of media choices continue to explode in a changing media environment.
If the FCC's decision is based solely on the record evidence -- and not on political emotions -- the commission will be compelled to eliminate the archaic and wholly unnecessary cross-ownership ban.
-----
William Dean Singleton is chief executive officer of MediaNews Group Inc. and immediate past chairman of the board of the Newspaper Association of America.

FillmoreSlim · 06-02-2003, 01:50 AM

Stop the FCC's Covert Operation

Michael Powell & Co. seem determined to ignore overwhelming public opposition and endorse a secret proposal on media consolidation

Here's a quiz. Name a hot political issue that unites the following people and groups:
Singer Neil Diamond
The National Rifle Assn.
The Consumers Union, the organization that publishes Consumer Reports
Senator Trent Lott (R-Miss.)
Media mogul Ted Turner, founder of CNN
Entertainment and Internet mogul Barry Diller
The National Organization for Women
Conservative New York Times columnist William Safire
Code Pink, Women for Peace, an antiwar group
The African American/Asian American/Hispanic Caucus of Congress

The answer: All are publicly opposed to the Federal Communications Commission's plans to vote on new rules governing media ownership on June 2. It's not clear exactly what the FCC will be voting on because, incredibly, Commission Chairman Michael Powell has never deigned to make public the 250-page document laying out the plan. But the general idea is to loosen rules that restrict the share any one company can own of the national TV market and allow cross-ownership of TV stations and newspapers in local markets.

Most analysts believe the changes would lead to a wave of consolidation in the national media market, which is already dominated by a handful of big companies such as AOL TimeWarner (AOL ), Viacom (VIA ), and News Corp. (NWS ).

APPALLED AND UNITED. Barring a last-minute change of heart, Powell intends to go ahead with the vote, despite requests for a delay from the two Democrats (out of five members) on the FCC and a passel of lawmakers from both parties. Powell won't share the details of the plan even with Congress.

This is undemocratic and disgraceful. Whether you're conservative, liberal, or in the middle, we should all be appalled by the way the FCC is acting in this case.

First off, allowing further consolidation of the U.S. media business is wrong on its face. Most of the usual "bigger is better" arguments don't apply. Media companies don't face the same sort of harsh foreign competition that confront auto and steel companies, for instance, partly because foreign ownership of them is restricted.

Moreover, our system of government invests print and broadcast media with special privileges (one reason they're so profitable) but also with special responsibilities precisely because they are so important to the functioning of our democracy. The "efficiencies" that come with mergers will likely mean fewer reporters, less local news, and a diminishing of the debate democracy needs to function.

NEW MATH. New technology simply isn't taking up the slack. You may think what you know about the world comes from the Internet, radio, and TV. But most actual news gathering is still done by print organizations such as newspapers, news agencies like the Associated Press and Bloomberg, and news magazines like BusinessWeek. Rush Limbaugh, Matt Drudge, and your favorite news anchor may put a spin on information in the public domain, but they aren't out gathering it. In small and medium-sized communities, the local newspaper is the sole source of information about government policies and local elections. More consolidation is likely to hurt, not help.

Yet, Powell has held only one official public hearing on the proposed changes, and has refused to attend most of the ad hoc meetings held around the country by Kenneth Adelstein and Michael Copps, the two Democrats on the FCC. The reason, Powell says, is that he prefers to focus on empirical studies -- and, in any case, the public has had plenty of chance to comment via the FCC's Web Site (www.fcc.gov).

If you actually go to the site and read some of the empirical studies the FCC appears to be relying on, however, they're pretty appalling. I came away wondering, why is the FCC making such monumental decisions with so little real information to go on?

FUZZY LOGIC. The FCC staff seems to have bent over backward to conclude that media consolidation has few ill effects. Take this conclusion by staffers Keith Brown and George Williams last September as to why radio advertising rates soared 81% (68% excluding inflation) in the five years after the FCC deregulated the radio market. Almost all of the lift came from "economic growth," they conclude. Oh really.

Rates might have gone up even more without consolidation, the study says. "A greater presence of large national owners in a local market appears to decrease the advertising rates paid by national and regional advertising agencies."

Does that make sense to you? It sure doesn't to me. If economic factors were, indeed, the cause of such a huge increase, why didn't radio ad rates plunge when the recession took hold last year? And why the emphasis on "national and regional" ad agencies when one of the FCC's mandates is to promote local diversity?

OVERWHELMING REACTION. The study glosses over one of the main problems with radio consolidation: That local advertisers have been squeezed out by big national ad firms. The truth is that as media markets consolidate, Wal-Mart (WMT ) and K Mart (KM ) may get good deals on radio ads, but a small, independent hardware store has a hard time getting its message across.

Worse, many of the studies by their own admission don't prove much of anything. For instance, David Pritchard, a journalism professor at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, analyzed coverage of the 2000 Presidential elections in 10 markets to see if newspapers and TV stations with the same owner tend to have a similar political slant. He was cautious in coming to any conclusions from such a small sample. But if you read the footnotes, you discover that four of the newspapers he discusses are owned by Tribune Co. (TRB ), which has the relatively unusual policy of not requiring its cross-owned local outlets to coordinate their Presidential endorsements. Doesn't that make the study even less representative?

To its credit, the FCC has a wonderful Web site and an electronic system that makes it easy for citizens to comment on issues under consideration. To date, the FCC has received more than 20,000 comments on its plans to change media ownership rules -- and, as of a tally on May 8, they were running more than 99% against. In addition, NRA members sent some 300,000 postcards opposing the changes, and activist groups such as MoveOn.org have taken out ads in major newspapers criticizing the plans. Has the FCC considered this outpouring? We'll know on June 1, but don't hold your breath.

UNMENTIONABLE PROTESTS. In 2001, two university professors studied five FCC decisions going back to 1996 and found that none of the decisions reflected public comment. One FCC staffer interviewed for the study noted that electronic comments from average citizens carry little weight with the commission because they are "nontechnical in nature."

The FCC tends to be pretty cavalier about how it handles public comment in general. For instance, Concerned Women for America, a conservative group that aims to ensure that "Biblical principles" are followed in American public policy, discovered late last year that the FCC received nearly 7,000 indecency complaints about CBS' Victoria's Secret Lingerie TV show -- and logged them as a single complaint. As a result, Concerned Women says, the FCC officially counted only 97 complaints received during the fourth quarter.

The bottom line here: If the FCC isn't listening to the public, it isn't acting in the public good. To go ahead with this vote on June 1 would be a travesty of public service.

FillmoreSlim · 06-02-2003, 01:51 AM

Is FCC pulling the plug on democracy?

By Nancy Cicco
[email protected]

NEWMARKET 2 bedroom, freshly refurbished available immediately, laundry facilities, parking. $800 month. 603-659-2600.

Media giants that hold huge sway in shaping public opinion could be handed more power to do that if the Federal Communications Commission on Monday endorses eased media ownership rules that govern the public airwaves.

While FCC Chairman Michael Powell has said the proposed regulations could be a boost to free-media outlets, others decry the proposals as a showdown between U.S. democracy and the money-grabbing interests of behemoth communications companies.

The fact the FCC?s proposed rule changes haven?t been better covered by the media "itself is a sign of the danger of relying on only a handful of companies controlling most of the media in the United States," said Joshua Meyrowitz, a professor of media studies at the University of New Hampshire.

If endorsed, the new regulations would allow television broadcasters to own and operate stations that reach up to 45 percent of U.S. households, a 10 percent increase over the current cap of 35 percent of U.S. households.

Other proposed regulation changes would allow one company to own two television stations in markets with at least six competitors and three stations in the country?s largest cities, such as New York and Los Angeles.

The FCC will also consider rule changes that would allow a single media company to own combinations of television and radio stations and newspapers in the same city, according to The Associated Press.

That?s too much power in too few hands, detractors say.

"You really should be incensed this is going on," said Portsmouth resident Clifford Taylor, a former general manager of WHEB-FM and WHEB-AM. "The little guy is being squeezed out."

The commission?s view

The proposed regulations split the five-member FCC board earlier last month when Democratic Commissioners Michael Copps and Jonathan Adelstein called on Powell, who is Secretary of State Colin Powell?s son, to postpone the board?s June 2 vote on the regulations, to no avail.

Copps and Adelstein prefer to keep the current regulations in place, in opposition to Republican Commissioners Powell, Kathleen Abernathy and Kevin Martin, according to the AP.

Reached this past week, Abernathy?s spokesperson, Stacy Robinson, said she could not confirm what the proposed FCC regulations seek to accomplish nor could she provide a statement about Abernathy?s opinion on the issue. Calls to the FCC?s other media spokespeople requesting comment on the issue were not returned before deadline.

The FCC?s Telecommunications Act of 1996 requires the commission to review media ownership regulations every two years.

According to published reports, Commissioner Powell believes the FCC rules need to be updated to keep pace with media market changes brought about by cable and satellite television and the Internet.

"We?re trying to make sure that quality content doesn?t continue to flee to pay television," Powell told The Associated Press.

He also does not want to leave it up to the courts to make changes to the regulations because he believes the commission should do that itself.

In response to Powell?s decision not to postpone Monday?s hearing, Copps issued a statement on the FCC?s Internet page.

"We are rushing to passage of new rules without letting the American people know who is going to own and control the public airwaves for years to come," Copps wrote.

The case against big business

Meyrowitz and Taylor warned that allowing media companies to own such large shares of given markets could inevitably homogenize news content and reduce the number of news-gathering staffs in the name of reaping greater corporate profits. They say a diversity of media voices in the marketplace is essential to fostering democracy.

Taylor began his career at the radio station WHEB-AM/FM in 1960 as a disc jockey and became the company?s general manager by 1975. He retired in 1988.

He believes the current cap on media ownership at 35 percent of a given market is already too high a share.

"If this passes, gone forever will be any semblance of local media anywhere," he said of the proposed FCC regulations.

He recalled that under former FCC rules, broadcast outlets had to work to justify their operational licenses. Broadcasters had to "pull all this stuff together" to show the FCC the station owners were accountable to and representative of the local community. He says those procedures have been whittled away.

"There?s practically no news and no accountability to the community," he said of the current state of local radio.

Clear Channel Communications, now the parent company of WHEB and six other radio stations in Portsmouth, has come under the microscope in the latest debate over FCC deregulation. Headquartered in San Antonio, Texas, the company operates some 1,225 radio stations and employs 55,000 people, according to Andrew Levin, the company?s senior vice president for government affairs.

"We believe that deregulation has been the key to turning radio from a dying medium into a vibrant one. Today, the efficiencies of deregulation have created enormous benefits for listeners and communities all over the country who have more choices and more formats than ever before," he said in response to written questions posed to him by the Portsmouth Herald.

Critics of media deregulation say their cause is well illustrated by a story concerning a Clear Channel radio station in Minot, N.D.

According to published reports, in January 2002, an early morning train wreck in Minot caused an ammonia spill. Local authorities were slowed in their ability to notify residents about the incident because they had trouble contacting a Clear Channel employee at KCJB-AM.

Media critics say the story speaks to the horrors of employee cost-cutting measures; however, Levin responded the station is staffed "24 hours a day, seven days a week."

The problem arose from the authorities relying on an outdated Emergency Broadcast System hotline. Clear Channel officials worked with local authorities to remedy the situation for the future, he said.

Meyrowitz fears further deregulation of media ownership will by default leave the airwaves in the hands of big conglomerates that have little incentive to challenge the status quo.

"One of the problems with narrowing the ownership is that there are lots of topics they tend not to want raised," he said.

More diversity in the media, for example, could have spurred a larger debate about the reasons behind the war with Iraq, he said. Instead, Meyrowitz believes the media "bought" the Bush administration?s claim Iraqi President Saddam Hussein was an imminent threat to the United States because he possessed weapons of mass destruction. No such weapons have yet been found.

"The public was completely misinformed about the reasons for this war," Meyrowitz said.

He wants media outlets to more frequently challenge the country?s Military-Industrial Complex.

While there may be more media outlets to choose from these days, critics say those outlets are in the hands of a few powerful companies.

"Already, we are in a situation where, supposedly, the greatest democracy on Earth has the narrowest discussion of political events," Meyrowitz said.

The biggest media companies include Viacom, AOL TimeWarner, Disney Inc., and News Corp., as each owns an array of broadcast television stations, film production companies, and print outlets. General Electric is also a player. Best known for the production of household appliances, the company also owns NBC and is a large U.S. defense contractor.

Outlook for New Hampshire

Media watchers are waiting to see how any potential change in the FCC regulations would affect the media industry in the Granite State.

John Tabor, the publisher of the Portsmouth Herald and six other newspapers owned by Seacoast Newspapers throughout New Hampshire and southern Maine, isn?t particularly worried the proposed FCC regulation changes would hit home here, if they are enacted.

"The cross-ownership rules really come into play in the top 100 cities. On the Seacoast, residents are blessed with good local newspaper competition, several independent weeklies, radio stations, cable, direct mail and increasing Internet outlets in real estate, tourism, employment and auto niches. We have a crowded media market because of the rich retail sector here, due to no sales tax. So all outlets can compete profitably, and do," he said. "Local residents win in smaller markets like this."

Congressman Charles Bass, R-N.H., representing the 2nd Congressional District, is waiting for the FCC to present its justification for any rule changes before he takes a position on the issue, according to Sally Tibbetts, the congressman?s communications director.

In an interview at the Portsmouth Herald on Thursday, Congressman Jeb Bradley, R-N.H. representing the 1st Congressional District, also said he is waiting for the FCC?s ruling, although he added he has "some concerns about the increasing monopolization" of the media.

Bradley fears eased regulations would create a "loss of independence of programming, a loss of news independence," particularly in smaller states like New Hampshire.

Late Friday, a group of local...

http://www.seacoastonline.com/news/0...news/31690.htm

FillmoreSlim · 06-02-2003, 01:52 AM

Monopoly not likely in media
Choices just keep growing

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

IN SUMMATION

Fears that easing restrictions on media ownership will create fewer choices for the public are not realistic in this day of satellites, cable, the Internet and other media outlets.

EDITORIAL
Today in Washington, D.C., the Federal Communications Commission is expected to vote on a series of proposals that will relax restrictions on how many television stations and newspapers a media company can own and where those stations and newspapers can be.

If you ease the rules on media ownership, say critics of the idea, you will end up with fewer and fewer corporations owning more and more major news outlets. These doubters fail to see something that is obvious: By continuing with the outmoded restrictions, you are leaving extraordinary power over the news in the hands of just one entity, the federal government.

When you stop to think about it, it's an anomaly in our liberty-loving, democratic republic that the government ever came to have so much disregard for the First Amendment, which says "Congress shall make no law ... abridging freedom of speech, or of the press ..." There have been excuses, of course. A main one -- when TV first became an inescapable fact of American life -- was that the possible networks were few in number. Intervening laws and rules are thereby justified, said Congress.

Those days are gone. Instead of three options on your TV set, or four or five or six, you have dozens, even hundreds. And watch out, because here comes the Internet, which enables just about anyone who so desires to have the equivalent of his or her own printing press.

When you add all the outlets together in this amazing day and age -- newspapers, broadcast TV, cable and satellite TV, hundreds of thousands of Internet sites, radio, local and national magazines, newsletters -- it's a stretch to suggest reducing federal controls somehow subjects us to the chance of just a few voices providing information and views on current events.

The FCC proposals would do several things, such as letting one company own TV stations penetrating 45 percent instead of just 35 percent of American households and allowing one company to have multiple media ownerships in large markets, such as both a TV and newspaper. Markets such as Salisbury's, where our daily newspaper operates along with two commercial television stations, would be unaffected.

If the FCC agrees to change the rules, there will be some unpopular consequences -- undoubtedly. But that is true of any enlargement of freedom. Allowing media companies new revenue streams can only improve their businesses and offer their customers better services.

And there will always be room for the up-and-coming entrepreneurs: Those who appeal to the best and most customers will always win at business.

Originally published Monday, June 2, 2003

FillmoreSlim · 06-02-2003, 01:54 AM

<b>This is the best one.</b>

http://www.dailytimesonline.com/news...on/406011.html

they use the same story on

Chincoteague Beacon
Delaware Beachcomber
Delaware Coast Press
Delaware Wave
Eastern Shore News
Maryland Beachcomber
Maryland Times-Press
Ocean Pines
Independent
Somerset Herald
Worcester Messenger

"Monopoly not likely"

FillmoreSlim · 06-02-2003, 09:52 AM

call me a postwhore but if you aint reading at least one of these items in this thread GET THE FUCK OUT THE THE BUSINESS

06-02-2003, 01:40 AM	#1
FillmoreSlim Confirmed User Join Date: May 2003 Location: streetz Posts: 1,236	FCC poised to ease media ownership limits WASHINGTON, June 2 (Reuters) - New rules allowing media companies to expand their reach are expected to be approved on Monday by a divided U.S. Federal Communications Commission amid fears the move may reduce the variety of viewpoints available to consumers. After months of debate and lobbying by companies and consumer advocates, the three Republican commissioners are likely to approve the new rules despite the objections of the two Democrats on the panel. Their meeting is due to start at 9:30 a.m. EDT (1330 GMT). The new rules could lead to the television networks gobbling up more local stations while other changes will allow companies to own two stations in more markets, and newspapers to buy television stations that serve the same markets. "The changes ... affect everybody, but I don't think you're going to see a big rush of big deals -- mostly trades, swaps, one-off deals between companies," said Blair Levin, a former FCC official and now analyst at Legg Mason. The push to change the decades-old media ownership limits follows federal appeals court criticism that the FCC had not justified the need for them. FCC Chairman Michael Powell brokered a compromise on relaxing the rules with his fellow Republican commissioners that he believes reflects the proliferation of new cable and Internet sources for entertainment, information and news. But FCC Commissioners Jonathan Adelstein and Michael Copps, both Democrats, have sided with a wide array of interest groups who oppose relaxing the rules for fear that independent voices would be silenced and local reporting would suffer. Media conglomerates lobbied the FCC for even looser rules or their elimination. Many industry experts think the new rules are almost certain to be challenged in court. At its meeting, the FCC is expected to continue a ban on mergers among the four largest television networks -- ABC owned by Walt Disney Co. DIS.N , CBS owned by Viacom Inc. VIAb.N , News Corp.'s NCP.AX Fox network and NBC, run by General Electric GE.N . The FCC is likely to leave alone limits on radio stations, but modify how the markets are defined to prevent a company from owning all the stations that serve a city. Clear Channel Communications Inc. CCU.N owns almost 1,200 and has been pilloried by lawmakers and consumer groups for dominating the airwaves in small towns and cities. While the FCC will take action to prevent that from happening again, the agency is not expected to try to break the company's grip. __________________ New and Improved Chameleon Submitter 2.0 - Submit to TGP and MGP sites - GET YOURS TODAY!

06-02-2003, 01:47 AM	#2
FillmoreSlim Confirmed User Join Date: May 2003 Location: streetz Posts: 1,236	FCC Chairman Defends Easing of Rules Mon Jun 2, 1:36 AM ET Add U.S. Government - AP to My Yahoo! By DAVID HO, Associated Press Writer WASHINGTON - A move to ease rules governing ownership of newspapers and television and radio stations will not lead to "a massive wave of mergers," Federal Communications Commission (news - web sites) Chairman Michael Powell says. In a vote set for Monday, Powell and two fellow Republicans on the five-member commission were expected to allow companies to buy more television stations and, in some cases, own both a newspaper and a broadcast station in the same city. Diverse interests opposed to deregulation say relaxed rules will kick off a merger frenzy, putting a few large companies in control of what people see, hear and read. They say that will homogenize viewpoints and diminish local emphasis in news and entertainment. Powell said Sunday the changes are more modest than critics contend. "This is not a complete deregulation of the media," Powell said on ABC's "This Week." "There will be rules and restrictions. Everything that a media company would like to do is not going to be permitted." Powell said some industry consolidation will follow the changes, but "just because somebody can buy something doesn't mean it makes strategic or financial sense to do so." "I don't particularly believe there will be a massive wave of mergers," he said. The rules expected to be eased include a limitation on a company owning television stations reaching more than 35 percent of U.S. households and restrictions on a single company owning combinations of newspapers and TV and radio stations in the same city. Another rule facing an overhaul limits local TV ownership so a company can control, at most, two stations in a market. The government adopted the ownership rules between 1941 and 1975 to encourage competition and prevent monopoly control of the media. A 1996 law requires the FCC (news - web sites) to study ownership rules every two years and repeal or modify regulations determined to be no longer in the public interest. Many changes proposed since then were sent back to the FCC after court challenges. Many media companies say outdated rules have limited their growth and competitiveness in a world changed by cable television, satellite broadcasts and the Internet. As the vote approached, opposition intensified. Critics bought television and newspaper ads, wrote letters and e-mails, and demonstrated outside television stations owned by major media companies. Some ads have taken on Rupert Murdoch, whose News Corp. owns Fox News Channel, 20th Century Fox TV and film studios, the New York Post and other media properties. Murdoch told a Senate committee last month he has no plan for a media buying spree after the changes, other than his proposed acquisition of DirecTV, the nation's largest satellite television provider. The critics of eased rules include consumer advocates, civil rights and religious groups, small broadcasters, writers, musicians, academicians and the National Rifle Association. They say most people still get news mainly from television and newspapers, and combining the two is dangerous because those entities will not monitor each other and provide differing opinions. Large newspaper companies such as Tribune Co. and Gannett Inc. disagree. "Newspaper-owned television stations program more and better news and public affairs than any other stations," said John Sturm, president of the Newspaper Association of America. News Corp. and Viacom Inc., which owns CBS and UPN, stand to benefit from a higher national TV ownership cap because mergers have left them above the 35 percent level. Those companies, along with NBC, persuaded an appeals court last year to reject that cap and send it back to the FCC for revision. Lawmakers have split mainly along party lines. Democrats demand more public scrutiny of the changes while Republicans support Powell. Some lawmakers critical of the FCC have proposed legislation to counter relaxed regulations. __________________ New and Improved Chameleon Submitter 2.0 - Submit to TGP and MGP sites - GET YOURS TODAY!

06-02-2003, 01:48 AM	#3
FillmoreSlim Confirmed User Join Date: May 2003 Location: streetz Posts: 1,236	YES: It Is About Providing Better Service to Consumers By William Dean Singleton The Salt Lake Tribune I am pleased to appear today to discuss the compelling reasons for eliminating the Federal Communications Commission's long-outdated and counterproductive ban on newspaper/ broadcast cross-ownership. The ban is the last vestige of a series of "one outlet per customer" local media-ownership restrictions adopted by the FCC in the 1960s and 1970s. Of these limitations, only the newspaper/broadcast cross-ownership rule has remained completely unchanged. All of the commission's other restrictions on broadcast ownership have been either eliminated or significantly relaxed over the years. Only newspapers have been completely barred from participating in the broadcast markets of their communities. This inaction on the part of the FCC is not for a lack of evidence. To the contrary, in four exhaustive proceedings over the past six years, the agency has accumulated a mountain of evidence supporting the repeal of the cross-ownership ban. In 1975, when the FCC adopted the ban, many newspapers were allowed to keep their broadcast stations. Forty or so of these grandfathered communities still exist. These communities take the guesswork out of eliminating the ban. They have provided the commission with illustrative case studies of the substantial public-interest benefits that will result from repeal. Representing the full gamut of market sizes, the record shows that they have consistently provided their communities with unmatched levels of service. At the same time, there is simply no evidence that the grandfathered situations have threatened competition in their local markets. To the contrary, there is substantial evidence showing that even the smallest markets containing newspaper/broadcast combinations remain vibrantly diverse and competitive. The evidence offered by grandfathered communities further shows that co-owned outlets generally present diverse perspectives on news and informational issues. Jointly owned newspapers and broadcast stations have strong economic and professional incentives to, and do in practice, avoid coordinating their viewpoints. Local autonomy and editorial freedom is the tradition of newspapers, and the same principles apply to the operation of local stations owned by newspapers. The evidence presented by newspaper publishers and other parties has been confirmed by several recent studies. A study commissioned by the FCC specifically found that "affiliates co-owned with newspapers experience noticeably greater success under our measures of quality and quantity of local news programming than other network affiliates." The results of a five-year study released by the Project for Excellence in Journalism at Columbia University echoes these findings. That study concluded that "stations in cross-ownership situations were more than twice as likely to receive an 'A' grade than were other stations" and that, on the whole, these stations "were more likely to do stories that focused on important community issues, [and] more likely to provide a wide mix of opinions . . . ." Let me offer what I believe would happen close to home in my newspaper markets: Fairbanks, Alaska, is perhaps the most remote, isolated community in America. There are five commercial television stations in the market. All struggle financially. Under today's rules, my newspaper thrives with an award-winning news presentation, while the television stations struggle to broadcast even a small amount of local news. There are no commercial news radio stations. In central and northern Alaska, many communities cannot get my newspaper delivered, but they can get radio and television. They deserve more. In Eureka, Calif., in another remote section of the country, there are four commercial television stations. The strongest station has a news staff of 11, and the other three don't produce substantive local newscasts at all. Imagine the community service we could provide by putting these newspaper resources behind television and radio news, especially if we purchase a station that produces no news today. In Pittsfield, Mass., I own a newspaper that covers the western quadrant of Massachusetts. There is no television station there, and never has been. If this rule is changed, we could put a station on the air that provided local TV news for the first time ever. Newspapers will add new resources to struggling television and radio enterprises, and those broadcast outlets will strengthen newspapers as the number of media choices continue to explode in a changing media environment. If the FCC's decision is based solely on the record evidence -- and not on political emotions -- the commission will be compelled to eliminate the archaic and wholly unnecessary cross-ownership ban. ----- William Dean Singleton is chief executive officer of MediaNews Group Inc. and immediate past chairman of the board of the Newspaper Association of America. __________________ New and Improved Chameleon Submitter 2.0 - Submit to TGP and MGP sites - GET YOURS TODAY!

06-02-2003, 01:50 AM	#4
FillmoreSlim Confirmed User Join Date: May 2003 Location: streetz Posts: 1,236	Stop the FCC's Covert Operation Michael Powell & Co. seem determined to ignore overwhelming public opposition and endorse a secret proposal on media consolidation Here's a quiz. Name a hot political issue that unites the following people and groups: Singer Neil Diamond The National Rifle Assn. The Consumers Union, the organization that publishes Consumer Reports Senator Trent Lott (R-Miss.) Media mogul Ted Turner, founder of CNN Entertainment and Internet mogul Barry Diller The National Organization for Women Conservative New York Times columnist William Safire Code Pink, Women for Peace, an antiwar group The African American/Asian American/Hispanic Caucus of Congress The answer: All are publicly opposed to the Federal Communications Commission's plans to vote on new rules governing media ownership on June 2. It's not clear exactly what the FCC will be voting on because, incredibly, Commission Chairman Michael Powell has never deigned to make public the 250-page document laying out the plan. But the general idea is to loosen rules that restrict the share any one company can own of the national TV market and allow cross-ownership of TV stations and newspapers in local markets. Most analysts believe the changes would lead to a wave of consolidation in the national media market, which is already dominated by a handful of big companies such as AOL TimeWarner (AOL ), Viacom (VIA ), and News Corp. (NWS ). APPALLED AND UNITED. Barring a last-minute change of heart, Powell intends to go ahead with the vote, despite requests for a delay from the two Democrats (out of five members) on the FCC and a passel of lawmakers from both parties. Powell won't share the details of the plan even with Congress. This is undemocratic and disgraceful. Whether you're conservative, liberal, or in the middle, we should all be appalled by the way the FCC is acting in this case. First off, allowing further consolidation of the U.S. media business is wrong on its face. Most of the usual "bigger is better" arguments don't apply. Media companies don't face the same sort of harsh foreign competition that confront auto and steel companies, for instance, partly because foreign ownership of them is restricted. Moreover, our system of government invests print and broadcast media with special privileges (one reason they're so profitable) but also with special responsibilities precisely because they are so important to the functioning of our democracy. The "efficiencies" that come with mergers will likely mean fewer reporters, less local news, and a diminishing of the debate democracy needs to function. NEW MATH. New technology simply isn't taking up the slack. You may think what you know about the world comes from the Internet, radio, and TV. But most actual news gathering is still done by print organizations such as newspapers, news agencies like the Associated Press and Bloomberg, and news magazines like BusinessWeek. Rush Limbaugh, Matt Drudge, and your favorite news anchor may put a spin on information in the public domain, but they aren't out gathering it. In small and medium-sized communities, the local newspaper is the sole source of information about government policies and local elections. More consolidation is likely to hurt, not help. Yet, Powell has held only one official public hearing on the proposed changes, and has refused to attend most of the ad hoc meetings held around the country by Kenneth Adelstein and Michael Copps, the two Democrats on the FCC. The reason, Powell says, is that he prefers to focus on empirical studies -- and, in any case, the public has had plenty of chance to comment via the FCC's Web Site (www.fcc.gov). If you actually go to the site and read some of the empirical studies the FCC appears to be relying on, however, they're pretty appalling. I came away wondering, why is the FCC making such monumental decisions with so little real information to go on? FUZZY LOGIC. The FCC staff seems to have bent over backward to conclude that media consolidation has few ill effects. Take this conclusion by staffers Keith Brown and George Williams last September as to why radio advertising rates soared 81% (68% excluding inflation) in the five years after the FCC deregulated the radio market. Almost all of the lift came from "economic growth," they conclude. Oh really. Rates might have gone up even more without consolidation, the study says. "A greater presence of large national owners in a local market appears to decrease the advertising rates paid by national and regional advertising agencies." Does that make sense to you? It sure doesn't to me. If economic factors were, indeed, the cause of such a huge increase, why didn't radio ad rates plunge when the recession took hold last year? And why the emphasis on "national and regional" ad agencies when one of the FCC's mandates is to promote local diversity? OVERWHELMING REACTION. The study glosses over one of the main problems with radio consolidation: That local advertisers have been squeezed out by big national ad firms. The truth is that as media markets consolidate, Wal-Mart (WMT ) and K Mart (KM ) may get good deals on radio ads, but a small, independent hardware store has a hard time getting its message across. Worse, many of the studies by their own admission don't prove much of anything. For instance, David Pritchard, a journalism professor at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, analyzed coverage of the 2000 Presidential elections in 10 markets to see if newspapers and TV stations with the same owner tend to have a similar political slant. He was cautious in coming to any conclusions from such a small sample. But if you read the footnotes, you discover that four of the newspapers he discusses are owned by Tribune Co. (TRB ), which has the relatively unusual policy of not requiring its cross-owned local outlets to coordinate their Presidential endorsements. Doesn't that make the study even less representative? To its credit, the FCC has a wonderful Web site and an electronic system that makes it easy for citizens to comment on issues under consideration. To date, the FCC has received more than 20,000 comments on its plans to change media ownership rules -- and, as of a tally on May 8, they were running more than 99% against. In addition, NRA members sent some 300,000 postcards opposing the changes, and activist groups such as MoveOn.org have taken out ads in major newspapers criticizing the plans. Has the FCC considered this outpouring? We'll know on June 1, but don't hold your breath. UNMENTIONABLE PROTESTS. In 2001, two university professors studied five FCC decisions going back to 1996 and found that none of the decisions reflected public comment. One FCC staffer interviewed for the study noted that electronic comments from average citizens carry little weight with the commission because they are "nontechnical in nature." The FCC tends to be pretty cavalier about how it handles public comment in general. For instance, Concerned Women for America, a conservative group that aims to ensure that "Biblical principles" are followed in American public policy, discovered late last year that the FCC received nearly 7,000 indecency complaints about CBS' Victoria's Secret Lingerie TV show -- and logged them as a single complaint. As a result, Concerned Women says, the FCC officially counted only 97 complaints received during the fourth quarter. The bottom line here: If the FCC isn't listening to the public, it isn't acting in the public good. To go ahead with this vote on June 1 would be a travesty of public service. __________________ New and Improved Chameleon Submitter 2.0 - Submit to TGP and MGP sites - GET YOURS TODAY!

06-02-2003, 01:51 AM	#5
FillmoreSlim Confirmed User Join Date: May 2003 Location: streetz Posts: 1,236	Is FCC pulling the plug on democracy? By Nancy Cicco [email protected] NEWMARKET 2 bedroom, freshly refurbished available immediately, laundry facilities, parking. $800 month. 603-659-2600. Media giants that hold huge sway in shaping public opinion could be handed more power to do that if the Federal Communications Commission on Monday endorses eased media ownership rules that govern the public airwaves. While FCC Chairman Michael Powell has said the proposed regulations could be a boost to free-media outlets, others decry the proposals as a showdown between U.S. democracy and the money-grabbing interests of behemoth communications companies. The fact the FCC?s proposed rule changes haven?t been better covered by the media "itself is a sign of the danger of relying on only a handful of companies controlling most of the media in the United States," said Joshua Meyrowitz, a professor of media studies at the University of New Hampshire. If endorsed, the new regulations would allow television broadcasters to own and operate stations that reach up to 45 percent of U.S. households, a 10 percent increase over the current cap of 35 percent of U.S. households. Other proposed regulation changes would allow one company to own two television stations in markets with at least six competitors and three stations in the country?s largest cities, such as New York and Los Angeles. The FCC will also consider rule changes that would allow a single media company to own combinations of television and radio stations and newspapers in the same city, according to The Associated Press. That?s too much power in too few hands, detractors say. "You really should be incensed this is going on," said Portsmouth resident Clifford Taylor, a former general manager of WHEB-FM and WHEB-AM. "The little guy is being squeezed out." The commission?s view The proposed regulations split the five-member FCC board earlier last month when Democratic Commissioners Michael Copps and Jonathan Adelstein called on Powell, who is Secretary of State Colin Powell?s son, to postpone the board?s June 2 vote on the regulations, to no avail. Copps and Adelstein prefer to keep the current regulations in place, in opposition to Republican Commissioners Powell, Kathleen Abernathy and Kevin Martin, according to the AP. Reached this past week, Abernathy?s spokesperson, Stacy Robinson, said she could not confirm what the proposed FCC regulations seek to accomplish nor could she provide a statement about Abernathy?s opinion on the issue. Calls to the FCC?s other media spokespeople requesting comment on the issue were not returned before deadline. The FCC?s Telecommunications Act of 1996 requires the commission to review media ownership regulations every two years. According to published reports, Commissioner Powell believes the FCC rules need to be updated to keep pace with media market changes brought about by cable and satellite television and the Internet. "We?re trying to make sure that quality content doesn?t continue to flee to pay television," Powell told The Associated Press. He also does not want to leave it up to the courts to make changes to the regulations because he believes the commission should do that itself. In response to Powell?s decision not to postpone Monday?s hearing, Copps issued a statement on the FCC?s Internet page. "We are rushing to passage of new rules without letting the American people know who is going to own and control the public airwaves for years to come," Copps wrote. The case against big business Meyrowitz and Taylor warned that allowing media companies to own such large shares of given markets could inevitably homogenize news content and reduce the number of news-gathering staffs in the name of reaping greater corporate profits. They say a diversity of media voices in the marketplace is essential to fostering democracy. Taylor began his career at the radio station WHEB-AM/FM in 1960 as a disc jockey and became the company?s general manager by 1975. He retired in 1988. He believes the current cap on media ownership at 35 percent of a given market is already too high a share. "If this passes, gone forever will be any semblance of local media anywhere," he said of the proposed FCC regulations. He recalled that under former FCC rules, broadcast outlets had to work to justify their operational licenses. Broadcasters had to "pull all this stuff together" to show the FCC the station owners were accountable to and representative of the local community. He says those procedures have been whittled away. "There?s practically no news and no accountability to the community," he said of the current state of local radio. Clear Channel Communications, now the parent company of WHEB and six other radio stations in Portsmouth, has come under the microscope in the latest debate over FCC deregulation. Headquartered in San Antonio, Texas, the company operates some 1,225 radio stations and employs 55,000 people, according to Andrew Levin, the company?s senior vice president for government affairs. "We believe that deregulation has been the key to turning radio from a dying medium into a vibrant one. Today, the efficiencies of deregulation have created enormous benefits for listeners and communities all over the country who have more choices and more formats than ever before," he said in response to written questions posed to him by the Portsmouth Herald. Critics of media deregulation say their cause is well illustrated by a story concerning a Clear Channel radio station in Minot, N.D. According to published reports, in January 2002, an early morning train wreck in Minot caused an ammonia spill. Local authorities were slowed in their ability to notify residents about the incident because they had trouble contacting a Clear Channel employee at KCJB-AM. Media critics say the story speaks to the horrors of employee cost-cutting measures; however, Levin responded the station is staffed "24 hours a day, seven days a week." The problem arose from the authorities relying on an outdated Emergency Broadcast System hotline. Clear Channel officials worked with local authorities to remedy the situation for the future, he said. Meyrowitz fears further deregulation of media ownership will by default leave the airwaves in the hands of big conglomerates that have little incentive to challenge the status quo. "One of the problems with narrowing the ownership is that there are lots of topics they tend not to want raised," he said. More diversity in the media, for example, could have spurred a larger debate about the reasons behind the war with Iraq, he said. Instead, Meyrowitz believes the media "bought" the Bush administration?s claim Iraqi President Saddam Hussein was an imminent threat to the United States because he possessed weapons of mass destruction. No such weapons have yet been found. "The public was completely misinformed about the reasons for this war," Meyrowitz said. He wants media outlets to more frequently challenge the country?s Military-Industrial Complex. While there may be more media outlets to choose from these days, critics say those outlets are in the hands of a few powerful companies. "Already, we are in a situation where, supposedly, the greatest democracy on Earth has the narrowest discussion of political events," Meyrowitz said. The biggest media companies include Viacom, AOL TimeWarner, Disney Inc., and News Corp., as each owns an array of broadcast television stations, film production companies, and print outlets. General Electric is also a player. Best known for the production of household appliances, the company also owns NBC and is a large U.S. defense contractor. Outlook for New Hampshire Media watchers are waiting to see how any potential change in the FCC regulations would affect the media industry in the Granite State. John Tabor, the publisher of the Portsmouth Herald and six other newspapers owned by Seacoast Newspapers throughout New Hampshire and southern Maine, isn?t particularly worried the proposed FCC regulation changes would hit home here, if they are enacted. "The cross-ownership rules really come into play in the top 100 cities. On the Seacoast, residents are blessed with good local newspaper competition, several independent weeklies, radio stations, cable, direct mail and increasing Internet outlets in real estate, tourism, employment and auto niches. We have a crowded media market because of the rich retail sector here, due to no sales tax. So all outlets can compete profitably, and do," he said. "Local residents win in smaller markets like this." Congressman Charles Bass, R-N.H., representing the 2nd Congressional District, is waiting for the FCC to present its justification for any rule changes before he takes a position on the issue, according to Sally Tibbetts, the congressman?s communications director. In an interview at the Portsmouth Herald on Thursday, Congressman Jeb Bradley, R-N.H. representing the 1st Congressional District, also said he is waiting for the FCC?s ruling, although he added he has "some concerns about the increasing monopolization" of the media. Bradley fears eased regulations would create a "loss of independence of programming, a loss of news independence," particularly in smaller states like New Hampshire. Late Friday, a group of local... http://www.seacoastonline.com/news/0...news/31690.htm __________________ New and Improved Chameleon Submitter 2.0 - Submit to TGP and MGP sites - GET YOURS TODAY!

06-02-2003, 01:52 AM	#6
FillmoreSlim Confirmed User Join Date: May 2003 Location: streetz Posts: 1,236	Monopoly not likely in media Choices just keep growing ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- IN SUMMATION Fears that easing restrictions on media ownership will create fewer choices for the public are not realistic in this day of satellites, cable, the Internet and other media outlets. EDITORIAL Today in Washington, D.C., the Federal Communications Commission is expected to vote on a series of proposals that will relax restrictions on how many television stations and newspapers a media company can own and where those stations and newspapers can be. If you ease the rules on media ownership, say critics of the idea, you will end up with fewer and fewer corporations owning more and more major news outlets. These doubters fail to see something that is obvious: By continuing with the outmoded restrictions, you are leaving extraordinary power over the news in the hands of just one entity, the federal government. When you stop to think about it, it's an anomaly in our liberty-loving, democratic republic that the government ever came to have so much disregard for the First Amendment, which says "Congress shall make no law ... abridging freedom of speech, or of the press ..." There have been excuses, of course. A main one -- when TV first became an inescapable fact of American life -- was that the possible networks were few in number. Intervening laws and rules are thereby justified, said Congress. Those days are gone. Instead of three options on your TV set, or four or five or six, you have dozens, even hundreds. And watch out, because here comes the Internet, which enables just about anyone who so desires to have the equivalent of his or her own printing press. When you add all the outlets together in this amazing day and age -- newspapers, broadcast TV, cable and satellite TV, hundreds of thousands of Internet sites, radio, local and national magazines, newsletters -- it's a stretch to suggest reducing federal controls somehow subjects us to the chance of just a few voices providing information and views on current events. The FCC proposals would do several things, such as letting one company own TV stations penetrating 45 percent instead of just 35 percent of American households and allowing one company to have multiple media ownerships in large markets, such as both a TV and newspaper. Markets such as Salisbury's, where our daily newspaper operates along with two commercial television stations, would be unaffected. If the FCC agrees to change the rules, there will be some unpopular consequences -- undoubtedly. But that is true of any enlargement of freedom. Allowing media companies new revenue streams can only improve their businesses and offer their customers better services. And there will always be room for the up-and-coming entrepreneurs: Those who appeal to the best and most customers will always win at business. Originally published Monday, June 2, 2003 __________________ New and Improved Chameleon Submitter 2.0 - Submit to TGP and MGP sites - GET YOURS TODAY!

06-02-2003, 01:54 AM	#7
FillmoreSlim Confirmed User Join Date: May 2003 Location: streetz Posts: 1,236	<b>This is the best one.</b> http://www.dailytimesonline.com/news...on/406011.html they use the same story on Chincoteague Beacon Delaware Beachcomber Delaware Coast Press Delaware Wave Eastern Shore News Maryland Beachcomber Maryland Times-Press Ocean Pines Independent Somerset Herald Worcester Messenger "Monopoly not likely" __________________ New and Improved Chameleon Submitter 2.0 - Submit to TGP and MGP sites - GET YOURS TODAY!

06-02-2003, 09:52 AM	#8
FillmoreSlim Confirmed User Join Date: May 2003 Location: streetz Posts: 1,236	call me a postwhore but if you aint reading at least one of these items in this thread GET THE FUCK OUT THE THE BUSINESS __________________ New and Improved Chameleon Submitter 2.0 - Submit to TGP and MGP sites - GET YOURS TODAY!