MEDIA- OWNERSHIP RULE --- THRILL RIDE STILL ROLLING

Date: 8 Jun 2003 03:33:30 -0500
Newsgroups: misc.activism.progressive
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But it took grassroots involvement to the tune of 3/4 million
communications by the public - mostly expressing ideas pooh-poohed by the
FCC majority - before the Congress began to stir.
Cheers
Michael
PS: And by the way, have the amended rules been published yet ?
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http://reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=musicNews&storyID=2893264
WASHINGTON (Billboard) - Sat June 7, 2003 11:57 AM ET The fight over a historic vote by federal regulators to ease media
ownership rules is far from over.
Senate Commerce Committee Chairman John McCain (R-Ariz.) is scheduling a
June 19 committee vote on a bill that would revoke the Federal
Communications Commission's (FCC) expanded national TV ownership rules.
The agency approved the rules by a 3-2 vote June 2, but radio rules
largely remain the same as they were after the 1996 Telecommunications Act
deregulated the industry.
Record-promotion executives, arguably the ones who deal directly with
radio, say nothing is new in the FCC's action.
The Commerce Committee held a hearing June 4 to examine whether Congress
should revisit the 1996 Telecommunications Act to change media
concentration regulations -- including radio ownership rules.
"Does the law allow you to re-regulate, or does the law have to be
changed?" McCain asked the commissioners.
"We're all in agreement that too much concentration is unhealthy," McCain
said. "The 'miner's canary' for this committee was the hearing we had on
Clear Channel . As we got into it, we learned that this same entity owned
promotions, ticket sales, a form of payola, which they have now
abandoned."
The toughest remarks from committee members about the FCC's
much-publicized rulemaking were aimed at FCC chairman Michael Powell. He
was accused of ignoring the grassroots outcry of citizens who opposed
relaxation of the old rules.
Powell held only one public hearing on the complicated media ownership
concentration issue throughout the 20-month proceeding and had only a
restricted four-month public comment period.
At the hearing, Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., took issue with Republican
commissioner Kathleen Abernathy over her remarks at the June 2 meeting
that many comments were based on fear, not fact.
"Just because you sit behind a microphone does not make you smarter than
other people," Boxer told her. "To dismiss their points of view by saying
they're 'fearful' is an insult to them."
Boxer read a letter from "a lady in Massachusetts" who wrote that " 'I no
longer feel able to listen to AM radio because of its poor content.
Musicians are not given ample air exposure if they're not a proven product
or backed by a corporate sponsor."'
Boxer then asked Abernathy: "Is this fear? I don't think so, commissioner.
I think it's fact."
Boxer cited FCC records showing that commission officials had 34 meetings
with a lobbyist and his partners whose clients represent numerous large
media companies. In contrast, the five commissioners only held one public
comment meeting.
"Do you understand why the people out there are upset?" she asked.
The new rules were all but formally approved after the commission received
more than 750,000 comments opposing changes from citizens of all political
stripes. Many said the consolidation of radio following the 1996 act has
led to less diversity, competition, and local programming and more
homogenized music and prepackaged news.
Members also debated whether public-interest standards should be applied
to non-broadcast entities, such as cable and satellite.
"Further concentration in these industries will guarantee that the range
of voices that Americans have come to expect . . . will continue to fade
away," longtime critic of consolidation Sen. Russ Feingold, D-Wis., said.
"It is unfortunate that the FCC did not consider the lessons we have
learned over the last seven years from the consolidation in the radio
industry."
Sen. Herb Kohl, D-Wis., added, "I expect that the Antitrust Subcommittee
will be conducting a hearing shortly to examine the implications of this
decision for competition."
The new rules largely address TV ownership, but they also allow joint
ownership of a newspaper and radio and TV station in the same market.
The FCC also changed the method by which it counted the number of radio
stations in a market. Previously, signal strength was used. Now the
station count comes from how many stations that rating company Arbitron
recognizes in a metro market.
Noncommercial radio stations are also now added to the count. Stations
operated by a market rival under a joint sales agreement will now be
counted as part of a cluster.
Radio ownership caps remain a maximum of eight stations in large markets,
a pullback from earlier FCC plans.
Clear Channel president/COO Mark Mays declared in a statement the company
was "deeply disappointed with FCC vote to re-regulate the radio industry."
A Viacom statement saw the vote as "enabling media companies to succeed as
they always have--by serving local communities."
But Viacom president/COO Mel Karmazin told the Deutsche Bank Securities
Media Conference in New York on the day of the vote that the FCC should
have gone further, according to Billboard sister publication The Hollywood
Reporter.
He expressed disappointment that the commission had restricted the growth
of radio-station owners.
Some observers were critical of using the Arbitron market definitions.
Robert Unmacht, one of the partners in capital firm iN3 Partners, notes
that Arbitron metros are determined with input from station owners, who
could now pressure the agency to gerrymander its definitions to suit their
needs.
Radio's critics on the artist and record-industry side are hoping for
further regulation but admit that Powell's FCC ruling favors the big boys.
Jay Rosenthal, co-counsel for the Recording Artists' Coalition, recalls a
comparable incident at the FCC to the big-time lobbyist scenario related
at the hearing by Boxer. "After Don Henley testified in front of the
Senate Commerce Committee in January, he paid a courtesy call to Chairman
Powell," Rosenthal recalled. "While he was waiting to see the chairman,
Rupert Murdoch came strolling out of the chairman's office. That said it
all!"
The Future of Music Coalition (FMC) hopes Congress will step in to modify
the new FCC rules.
"It comes down to what could be really bad vs. what's tolerable. A year
ago, the talk was all about lifting small market caps. Today, radio's the
cautionary tale, and the FCC kept existing radio caps in place," FMC
government relations director Michael Bracey says.
"We would hope that the FCC would consider and issue regulations to
address the collateral impacts of media consolidation, such as the loss of
diversity in music programming on the radio," a spokesman for the
Recording Industry Assn. of America added.
Ann Chaitovitz, director of sound recordings for the American Federation
of Television and Radio Artists, worried that "multiple station owners
will opt to eliminate the smaller station's locally programd and produced
shows, which had in the past provided access to local musicians, and
replace them with repeats of the larger stations' more mainstream
programming."
When Billboard sister and radio-trade publication Airplay Monitor polled
label executives after the passage of the 1996 Telecommunications Act,
many already had some sense of how that bill would affect their business
years later, particularly by reducing the number of decision-makers.
Label response was more muted this time around, if only because execs have
already had to adapt to an altered landscape.
Virgin executive VP Hilary Shaev does not expect the new rules to change
the way business is done. "It may clear up concerns about one company
owning most stations in a few small markets, which shouldn't have a big
impact on the record companies."
Dale Turner, Lyric Street Records VP of promotion administration, says, "I
don't expect any significant change in decision-makers. It really depends
on the culture of each radio group"--which already varies widely.
But DreamWorks head of rock formats Ross Zapin counters, "Any change will
affect the way we do business. We'll have to take a wait-and-see approach.
Consolidation will continue. Competition is good for our business, and
unfortunately, there's going to be less and less of it. If you're going to
cut it down to a record company dealing with a radio station and there's
less options to expose your music, of course it's going to hurt us."
And Joey Carvello, VP of rhythm crossover promotion at TVT, believes that
in a hip-hop and R&B world where "the streets dictate 90% of the music
that makes it into full-time rotation, a reduction in decision-makers has
no impact on the front-line music" that he works.
Reuters/Billboard
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