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Thursday, Nov 26, 2009
FCC chairman Michael Powell is likely to get media ownership deregulated -- even though public comment is running 97 percent against it.
May 23, 2003 | By all accounts Federal Communications Commission chairman Michael Powell knew his crusade to eliminate decades' worth of media ownership limits was going to be a bruising fight, both inside and outside the commission. The prospect of a rush toward more media consolidation raises all sorts of hot-button issues about the future of American media and the role news plays in a democratic society.
Powell now looks likely to emerge victorious, via a party-line 3-2 vote among FCC commissioners set for early June. But thanks to an avalanche of negative public feedback, surprisingly chilly reception from both Democratic and Republican members of Congress, and the unusually public spat that's broken out internally at the FCC over the details of the final proceedings, the battle leading up to the vote -- as opposed to the actual outcome -- is emerging as a compelling Beltway drama in its own right.
Powell, often credited with being a silky-smooth operator, is having his political skills put to the test. And his push to change the rules has touched a sore nerve in a public already concerned about recent heavy consolidation in the radio industry.
Powell did win a key victory last week. A majority of members on the Republican-controlled Senate Commerce Committee, including conservatives such as Trent Lott, R-Miss., now oppose Powell's move toward further media consolidation. But Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., who chairs the committee, came to Powell's rescue by refusing congressional requests that the chairman testify before it.
Powell's refusal to debate the controversial agenda in public has some in Washington seething. On May 13 Sen. Fritz Hollings, D-S.C., a longtime critic of deregulation, issued an angry statement blasting the "shameful" way the FCC has handled revising the rules.
Opponents of further media deregulation believe that Powell made up his mind a long time ago that the rule changes -- which media giants such as Viacom, News Corp. and the Tribune Co. have sought for years -- need to be made, regardless of the opposition.
"The FCC could have acted in a way that made this more of a national debate on the merits, instead of keeping it under wraps," says one Democratic Hill source whose boss is actively involved in the consolidation issue.
The perception of Powell as unwilling to listen to criticism has been reinforced by his decision to schedule only one public hearing on the historic rule changes (which led his fellow commissioners to stage a series of unsanctioned hearings). He also refused to testify before Congress about the issue, refused to make public the details of the rule changes that the FCC will be voting on next month, and broke with FCC tradition by snubbing a courtesy request from fellow commissioners to postpone a policy vote by 30 days.
Those last two acts brought a sharp, public rebuke from Democratic commissioner Michael Copps: "The Chairman's decision not to make these proposals public, nor even to grant a short delay in voting, runs roughshod over the requests of the American people and the precedents of this Commission."
Traditionally, those sorts of internal FCC squabbles have been handled behind closed doors, not via dueling press releases, notes Arthur Belendiuk, a veteran Washington communications lawyer who has been dealing with the FCC for decades. "You might fight with your wife, but you try to avoid doing it in a restaurant," he says.
Admirers of Powell insist he's done as good a job as can be expected with a topic as explosive as media ownership. "He's navigated it well," says Scott Cleland, a telecommunications analyst and the CEO of the Precursor Group, an investment research company. "It's among the most political decisions the FCC has made in decades. Mother Theresa couldn't have navigated it any more safely." Cleland thinks Powell was wise to dismisses calls for a delay of the June 2 vote. "It's a classic Washington move; if you know you're going to lose, you delay. It would have just been 30 more days of pounding on the piñata."
