FCC No Longer Objects to 3rd Circuit Delay on Cross-Ownership
The FCC withdrew a recent request that an appeals court go ahead with deciding challenges to an order loosening some restrictions on when a company can own a daily newspaper and a broadcast station in a city (CD Dec 19/07 p1). In a notice of withdrawal of opposition filed Thursday with the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appals in Philadelphia, the commission reversed the position of its previous leadership. Commissioner Robert McDowell wrote the court Friday to say he “respectfully disagreed” with last week’s filing and still supports the FCC’s January request for the case to go forward.
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“The Commission’s January 9 Opposition no longer reflects the view of the majority of the current Commission,” said the request by Michele Ellison, the commission’s acting general counsel, in Prometheus Radio Project v. FCC. The earlier filing asked the court not to approve a motion by Prometheus, Free Press and the United Church of Christ, all media consolidation foes, to put the case on hold. Officials including Media Access Project President Andrew Schwartzman said it’s routine for the commission not to object to requests like this.
Though there are “new circumstances” for the FCC to review its ownership rules, acting Chairman Michael Copps said, he doesn’t “believe that sends a signal that ‘whoopee, we should have more newspaper broadcast cross-ownership.'” He’s “not a fan” of the order approved when Kevin Martin was chairman, Copps told reporters Friday. “Too much consolidation got us into a lot of the that problems we're in right now,” he said. “I'm not sure that we won’t have more consolidation requests in the future as the economy turns around, and I think that the FCC ought to have a policy to deal with it. The courts would expect us to look at this again. I think public policy would mandate that we look at this again.”
McDowell thinks “the litigation should go forward,” he told reporters after speaking at the NCTA show with Commissioner Jonathan Adelstein. “With the sad state of where the newspaper industry is, I think we need some resolution.” By law, the FCC must start its next media- ownership review in 2010, he added.
No newspaper-broadcast deals have been brought to the FCC since the 2007 decision, so “at this point it’s much more of a theoretical debate,” Adelstein said. He voted with Copps against the cross-ownership order. Considering the “tough shape” that stations and papers are in, combinations between the media within cities seem unlikely, Adelstein said. “It doesn’t seem like joining up two industries that are having declining revenues, many of which are in the verge of bankruptcy, is going to save either.”