After more than a year, the FCC gave conditional approval Mon. to the merger of Univision and Hispanic Bcstg. Corp. (HBC), ending a long-running debate over whether Spanish-language media should be considered a market separate from their English language counterparts. The decision came in a 3-2 vote, with the 2 Democratic commissioners dissenting.

With the decision by the 3rd Appeals Court, Philadelphia, to keep the media ownership case rather than transfer it to the D.C. Circuit (CD Sept 16 p8), parties are questioning the ideological leanings of Pa. panel. Media Access Project (MAP), representing petitioners Prometheus Radio Project, Media Alliance and the National Council of Churches, wanted the case out of the D.C. Circuit, which has ruled against them repeatedly in the past.

The FCC declared Tues. that the news interview segments on The Howard Stern Show made it a bona fide news interview program. It said the show therefore was exempt from equal opportunity requirements for opposing candidates for political office. The determination came in response to a request for a declaratory ruling filed by Infinity Bcstg., licensee of WXRK(FM) in N.Y.C., which airs the show. Under the Communications Act, if a licensee allows a legally qualified candidate for public office to use a broadcast station, it must afford equal opportunities to other such candidates for that office. But the Act also says that appearances by legally qualified candidates on certain categories of bona fide news interview programs are exempt. Initially, the FCC found only programs such as Meet the Press and Face the Nation fit the bill, but since has widened its thinking to include shows like the old Donahue program that had interviews. The Commission noted in its decision that shows such as Jerry Springer and Politically Incorrect now qualified. To qualify, the program must be regularly scheduled, the licensee must determine the content, format and participants and the determination must have been made by the station “in the exercise of its bona fide news judgment and not for the political advantage of the candidate for political office.” The FCC said The Howard Stern Show qualified. In releasing the decision, the FCC stressed that it took the action at Infinity’s request, and licensees airing programs that met the statutory news exemption need not seek a formal declaration. Media Access Project was up in arms over the decision. MAP Pres. Andrew Schwartzman said FCC Chmn. Powell was wiping out the core protections of the Communications Act. “First, he tried to eliminate rules protecting the public from media monopolies. Now he has aimed at the equal time laws by trying to expand an exemption enacted to cover programs like Face the Nation.” Schwartzman said the law applied to bona fide news interviews, and “Howard Stern isn’t ‘bona fide’ anything. If we have to take him [Powell] to court 3 times a day, we'll do it, because Chairman Powell is damaging democratic self-governance.” Schwartzman said the decision was all the worse because the FCC didn’t give the public a chance to comment.

As petitions for reconsideration came tumbling in to the FCC Thurs., the agency was awash in questions over how it would handle pending broadcast transactions now that a court had ordered the agency to put its new rules on hold (CD Sept 4 p1). The stay order by the 3rd U.S. Appeals Court, Philadelphia, said the decision by the 3-judge panel was predicated on the fact that “the magnitude of this matter and the public’s interest in reaching the proper resolution” warranted a stay pending a “thorough and efficient judicial review.” The judges said a temporary stay would cause little harm to the agency, but the decision immediately touched off confusion about a set of new broadcast transaction forms the agency just recently said were ready for use (CD Aug 15 p9).

PHILADELPHIA -- A 3-judge panel of the 3rd U.S. Court of Appeals here late Wed. stayed the effective date of the FCC’s new media ownership rules, indicating that the level of public interest, scrutiny and controversy over the rules warranted the action. However, Judge Thomas Ambro said during oral argument earlier in the day that the court should give significant weight to the notion that cases involving important and difficult public issues might merit such an extraordinary stay. Reacting to the order, an FCC spokesman said: “While we are disappointed by the decision by the court to stay the new rules, we will continue to vigorously defend them and look forward to a decision by the court on the merits.” The rules were due to take effect today (Thurs.). It remained unclear whether those who sought a stay ultimately would be successful in overturning the rules.

In an effort to generate support for controversial new FCC media ownership rules, broadcast networks Viacom/CBS, Fox, NBC and ABC welcomed Congress back to work this week by running political ads designed to help persuade members that voters didn’t care who owned their local TV stations and didn’t want lawmakers regulating who can.

In the days following the FCC’s decision on new media ownership rules, some broadcasters made substantial donations to the election campaigns of key members of Congress with oversight of the FCC, records show. In particular, 2 companies that stand to gain from relaxed ownership rules, Clear Channel and News Corp., both increased their donations in June over previous years. Since the FCC’s June 2 vote, much of the debate over ownership has shifted to Congress, where there’s an ongoing effort to overturn the FCC’s rules. The congressional committees that most often deal with such issues include Commerce and Appropriations, but Judiciary also has a role at times and we found that many of the donations were focused on members of those committees. The public records are somewhat limited, however, since campaign donations have to be reported the Federal Elections Commission (FEC) only on a quarterly basis. The latest records available end June 30.

The U.S. Public Interest Research Group (PIRG) and other consumer advocates warned Tues. that the cable industry had such a lock on video programming that not having cable was like “opting out of democracy.” In a report Tues. titled “The Failure of Cable Deregulation,” U.S. PIRG said cable rates had risen at 3 times the rate of inflation since the 1996 Telecom Act deregulated cable. For basic and expanded basic, rates have risen by more than 50%, the report said, and some cities, N.Y.C. for example, had been hit particularly hard with increases of as much as 94%.

The Aug. congressional recess isn’t likely to be relaxing for network lobbyists, who are trying to slow the momentum for rolling back broadcast ownership caps. With the Senate scheduled to vote to throw out all of the FCC’s controversial media ownership rule changes, network backers said they would use the month to try to change the direction of the nationwide media ownership debate. And while both sides acknowledge that it’s still uncertain what, if anything, Congress will do on media ownership rules, it seems clear that the impact of the issue on Capitol Hill has surprised many and seems likely to carry over into other media issues.

The Media Access Project, long a voice for regulation, is calling for elimination of the UHF discount. In a meeting late last week with FCC Chmn. Powell and aide Susan Eid, MAP Pres. Andrew Schwartzman argued that there was no evidence in the record to support retention of the UHF discount. He said Powell and others had said that any rule that lacked an empirical grounding should be repealed. Schwartzman also cited what he called an inconsistency in treating UHF stations as equivalent to VHF stations in the FCC’s duopoly rules, “while giving them half as much significance in calculating the national ownership cap.” Schwartzman said that even if the Commission decided a discount was necessary, it then must justify the size of that discount. “There is nothing on the record to justify any discount, much less a 50% discount,” the filing said. Both Powell and Eid questioned whether new disparities would be created, but Schwartzman said grandfathering might be appropriate in some cases.