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Media-ownership law outdated?

Dissolving a decades-old law enforcing restrictions could alter the future of news and entertainment, some say.

By DAVID HO

Date published: 2/28/2003

ASSOCIATED PRESS WRITER

RICHMOND--The nation's top communications regulator said yesterday that if the government fails to fully substantiate its looming decision on rules restricting media ownership, those findings would not survive court challenges.

"This is a rule-making that will be driven by evidence and not just intuition," Federal Communications Commission Chairman Michael Powell said. He said if the commission can no longer justify such a media ownership restriction, "the rule will go away."

The FCC is studying whether decades-old media ownership restrictions are suitable for a marketplace that has been transformed by satellite broadcasts, cable television and the Internet.

The time has come to get rid of those restrictions, John Sturm, president of the Newspaper Association of America, told a hearing the FCC held yesterday in the state capital.

The rule preventing a company from owning a broadcast station and a newspaper in the same market is outdated, he said.

"The media world is totally different now as compared to when this ban went into effect in 1975," Sturm said in prepared remarks. He said "cross-ownership" of a newspaper and a broadcast station can enhance the quality and quantity of news and local information.

But not all newspapers oppose the ban.

Chris Powell, managing editor of the Journal-Inquirer in Manchester, Conn., said he came to the hearing to protest news media concentration in his state. He challenged arguments that the ownership rules are outdated because new kinds of media have changed the market.

"The state and local news advertising provided by the Internet and cable TV in Connecticut are negligible," he said.

The agency's five commissioners invited comments from the public and industry figures as one of the final steps in its review, which will probably be completed in May. It is widely believed that Powell and two other Republicans on the commission want to loosen the regulations.

Commissioner Michael Copps, a Democrat, said the decisions the FCC will make could alter the landscape of news and entertainment programming.

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Date published: 2/28/2003