Commissioners Hold off on Media-Ownership Order Negotiations
Commissioners have held off negotiating with FCC Chairman Kevin Martin over his media ownership draft order because they want to see whether he will yield to congressional pressure to delay the Dec. 18 vote, agency sources said. They said the chairman hasn’t told colleagues of any plans to delay action, as Commissioners Jonathan Adelstein and Michael Copps sought Wednesday (CD Dec 13 p1). But commissioners didn’t want to start revising Martin’s draft order -- which would allow common ownership of a newspaper and radio or TV station in most cases in the top 20 markets -- until they're more certain a vote set for Tuesday won’t be postponed, the sources said.
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A Senate bill (S-2332) to delay a vote several months has 21 co-sponsors, Senate records show. It was passed Dec. 4 by the Senate Commerce Committee, at whose Thursday hearing Martin was criticized for inadequate efforts to get public comment on the ownership order before circulating it two weeks ago. (See separate report in this issue.) Martin signaled the committee that he’s disinclined to delay the vote, saying he wants to “move forward.” If Martin were going to seek a delay, he probably would do it shortly after the hearing, a commission official said. Unless the order is pulled from the Tuesday meeting agenda, talks on it probably will begin this week. Conversations between commissioners’ offices over edits probably will go down to the wire, perhaps delaying the Tuesday meeting’s scheduled 9:30 a.m. start, FCC sources said.
Visits by broadcast executives and consolidation opponents to the FCC’s top floor before the so-called sunshine period when lobbying is barred are another reason commissioners haven’t proposed changes to the order, an agency official said. The source said commissioners haven’t had time to consider any changes they may propose to Martin’s draft order to reflect concerns voiced by broadcasters, who want more deregulation, and public-interest and consumer groups adamant that the cross-ownership ban shouldn’t be weakened.
Friday through Tuesday, broadcasters discussed ownership at least 11 times by phone or in person with commissioners, their staff or Media Bureau officials, according to ex partes filed (Doc. 06-121). The NAB and the Smaller Market Television Stations coalition were among those seeking more deregulation. NAB officials told an aide to Commissioner Robert McDowell that it’s “inappropriate” not to revamp the TV duopoly rules. No such changes appear Martin’s draft. Clear Channel officials told Adelstein they want to remove limits on the number of radio stations in a band that can be owned in each market, said an ex parte. Gannett Chairman Craig Dubow had separate meetings with Martin and Commissioner Deborah Tate on “possible avenues for regulatory relief” of cross-ownership rules, while Media General President Marshall Morton spoke with McDowell and Tate on the subject, ex parte filings show.
Martin’s order would allow cross-ownership combinations in smaller markets if waiver applicants can show the FCC that they would have more local news stories after a merger, among other factors, an FCC official said. Some commissioners were confused over the local news waiver standard because of what they called inconsistent statements in Martin’s Nov. 13 news release proposing the rules (CD Nov 15 p8). One part said a waiver seeker would have to show a deal would lead to more news in the market as a whole. Later the document said only the broadcaster and newspaper in a deal must produce more local news themselves. The text of Martin’s order seems to follow the latter tack, said the source. Martin told the Senate hearing that his waiver would “tighten” standards. In a meeting Friday with Copps, Media Access Project President Andrew Schwartzman and others stressed the need to clarify whether “programming quantity would be tested on a market wide or station by station basis,” according to an ex parte filing.
Another media ownership order set for a vote Tuesday was stripped of a rulemaking notice on digital-TV spectrum leasing to independent programmers. The element was removed after some commissioners criticized the plan, an FCC source said. An FCC spokeswoman declined to comment. Some broadcast and cable executives have panned Martin’s desire to give programmers who lease digital capacity from TV stations guaranteed carriage on cable systems. Martin combined into one item a spectrum leasing rulemaking, long circulating on the eighth floor, and a new order to adopt more than a dozen rules to help minorities and women buy TV stations. This move, less than two weeks before the Nov. 27 FCC meeting at which the newly combined item was to be voted on, angered other commissioners, because it gave them less than the usual three weeks to consider the item. When the other four commissioners requested more time, Martin relented, pulling the item from the Nov. 27 meeting agenda. The episode marks at least the second time in 2007 that the four other FCC member have take the unusual step of asking the chairman to pull a controversial item.