FCC Notice Asks Many Questions for Media Ownership Review

The questions seem to represent the preliminary thinking of Chairman Julius Genachowski on media ownership and won’t likely impact the notice of inquiry of rulemaking notice that will formally start the proceeding, agreed commission and public-interest group officials. All FCC members weren’t involved in preparing the questions because the notice was a bureau-level document, said commission officials. That likely will change as the process continues, though Genachowski’s office hasn’t made clear to other offices when or if additional workshops will be held and when rulemakings will be voted on, they said.

The public notice is a way for Genachowski to seek data on media ownership at an early point in the proceeding, commission officials said. He’s taken a similar tack in the National Broadband Plan, one said. “The FCC looks forward to initially compiling a public record of comments -- both from the announced workshops and from general public submissions,” a commission spokesman said, citing the public notice (PN). Such a record will be “based on the topics and questions outlined in the PN, and in subsequent stages of the proceeding on all additional relevant issues.”

Besides the five ownership issues Congress mandated the commission address in 2010 as part of the quadrennial review, are there other rules or issues that should be examined, the notice asked. “The existing rules limit concentration within a single industry and bilateral cross-ownership between two industries. Should the Commission continue to enforce limits of these types, or should it develop an alternative structure, such as determining an ownership limit for all media within a relevant market?” The notice sought input on what data should be examined and what databases it should use.

The notice had one section on competition and one on diversity, asking in both cases about “metrics” to measure them. “How should the Commission evaluate diversity across media?” Is competition best measured as an economic variable, the document asked: “If so, what approach should the FCC take to determine the relevant product and geographic markets? Are the relevant geographic markets local, national, both, or something else?”

One reason the commission raised so many queries in a public notice rather than in a rulemaking is that Genachowski has sought to increase transparency by asking in public questions that used to be privately discussed, some said. “Before a [rulemaking] notice goes out, there is a lot of preliminary discussion and blue-sky thinking,” President Andrew Schwartzman of the Media Access Project, scheduled to be a panelist at the Nov. 3 workshop, said. “They're just gathering information and trying to think big thoughts.” The notice marks perhaps the first time the commission has started a media ownership review before the year it’s mandated for, said Policy Counsel Corie Wright of Free Press, another group which will participate Nov. 3. “It wants people to know what it’s thinking about. They're certainly erring on the side of detail” in “teeing up the issues.”

The NAB “looks forward to working with the FCC to further the public interest in media ownership,” a spokesman for the group said. General Counsel Jane Mago will speak at the third half-day workshop, on Nov. 4, along with General Counsel George Mahoney of Media General and Executive Director James Winston of the National Association of Black Owned Broadcasters. The previous day also will see appearances by representatives of the Future of Music Coalition, Progress and Freedom Foundation and the United Church of Christ. Nov. 2, Former Commissioner Harold Furchtgott-Roth will be joined by five professors.