FCC Begins Cross-Ownership Rule Review

By: Todd Shields After pausing to recognize the victims of the terrorist attacks this week, the Federal Communications Commission began a proceeding Thursday that could eliminate its media cross-ownership rule by the middle of next year.

With a 4-to-0 vote, the commission's three Republicans and sole Democrat agreed to decide the fate of the rule. Currently, the rule bars common ownership of a daily newspaper and a broadcast station -- whether radio or TV -- in the same market.

Newspaper companies long have chafed at the FCC's failure to review the rule. Last week's step follows Washington's change from a Democratic to a Republican administration, and the departure from the FCC of Democratic members who defended the rule.

"This is a day the newspaper industry has been waiting for," said John F. Sturm, president of the Newspaper Association of America, a trade group representing daily newspapers. "The rule is outdated and unnecessary, and finally the FCC has a proceeding that will allow us to make that case."

Consumer advocates say the rule is needed to prevent a single company from dominating public discourse in a given area. Despite the Internet, satellite TV, and other innovations, they say, news of local and regional events is still delivered primarily by newspapers and local TV and radio stations.

Newspaper companies say a changed landscape leaves the rule no longer serving its stated purposes of encouraging a diversity of voices and fostering economic competition.

The rule was adopted in 1975, when cable TV was in its infancy and the Internet was not yet born. Those developments assure a multiplicity of voices, say newspaper executives. They say the rule prevents newspapers from competing for broadcast assets, which have fallen under increasingly concentrated ownership with a wave of consolidations among TV and radio companies.

The FCC said it would consider a range of outcomes, from retaining the rule unchanged through eliminating it. It set a 90-day period for comments and replies, placing it on course to deliberate during the first half of next year.

The agency's commissioners approved the rule-making procedure after brief comments, including Chairman Michael Powell's expression of "outrage at the heinous events" in New York and Washington.