By: About 750 people came to Town Hall to give the Federal Communications Commission a message: They want less media consolidation not more.
More than 200 people signed up to testify with most of them opposed to proposed new rules including a relaxation of the media consolidation regulations. Others expressed their views with signs and costumes, such as those who said they were dressed as "media-consolidation zombies."
"You become a zombie when your voice isn't heard," said Monica Olsson, dressed as a zombie. "That's what we're here to stop."
Most media companies want to see the ownership restriction eased or eliminated, and many who spoke Friday said they were certain the FCC's Republic majority had already made up their minds to do the industry's bidding.
Among the speakers were Gov. Chris Gregoire and Attorney General Rob McKenna.
"I find it ironic that in an age with so many new ways for people to communicate - and so many ways to exercise the beauty of Democracy - we face the very real threat that these new ways will be controlled by a few," Gregoire said.
She said consolidation stifles creativity, narrows perspectives and is unhealthy in a society that rests on the principles of equality and diversity.
People booed and interrupted commission Chairman Kevin Marin, particularly about the timing of the hearing notice, which came one week before the meeting.
McKenna said media consolidation could hurt small businesses because a lack of competition could drive up advertising costs.
Among those testifying were directors of several cable-access channels in smaller markets, such as South King County, Olympia and Salem, Ore. Local news and issues from these communities are rarely mentioned on TV news channels based in Seattle, Portland or Eugene.
"These markets that everybody mentions, these are towns, cities, communities, full of people," said Chris Miller, operations director of Puget Sound Access in Kent.
Miller spoke about growing up in a small South Dakota town where local media were bought out by corporate interests. He said he learned about media consolidation as a 17-year-old radio listener when he called his favorite radio station to request a song and discovered the station no longer employed a local disc jockey.
The FCC adopted looser ownership rules in 2003, prompting widespread protests. A federal appeals court struck down the changes, ruling the commission had not adequately justified them.
Last year, the commission announced it would take up the issue again and the FCC chairman has said he wants a vote next month.
The general managers of Seattle's KING-TV and KCPQ-TV were among the handful of witnesses who did not call for preserving the current media-ownership rules. Their respective owners, Dallas-based Belo and Chicago-based Tribune, already own newspaper-TV combinations in other cities that predate the FCC ban.
Major media companies say the ownership restrictions no longer are needed because new technology - the Internet, cable TV, satellite radio - has produced new media voices.
But Ian Page-Echols, a Seattle documentary filmmaker and artist, said unrestricted access to the Internet is threatened by media conglomerates who could control the Internet.
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