Ordinarily, deregulation opponents are often dismissed as simply voicing knee-jerk reactions to big-business initiatives. But that doesn't explain why a majority of the Senate Commerce Committee stands opposed to Powell.

Enter Clear Channel. The 1996 Telecommunications Act singled out radio for sweeping ownership deregulation, paving the way for Clear Channel to expand from 40 stations to 1,225, approximately 970 stations more than its closest competitor had. In the process, the company revolutionized the radio business in ways most people think have been for the worse: massive layoffs, less news, less local control, and homogenized music playlists.

"The lesson of radio over the last seven years is a critical one for this debate, and we ignore it at great risk to the country," Sen. Russ Feingold, D-Wis., wrote to Powell last week. "It will be a much harder task to turn back the clock if these new rules do to newspapers and television what the Telecommunications Act of 1996 has done to radio."

Powell has not helped his case by embracing suspect rhetoric while trying to rationalize the rule changes. He told the Financial Times on April 30 that by not allowing for further media consolidation, "there is a real worry about the long-term survivability of free, over-the-air television," adding, "I think there is a very easy way for it to collapse." It was a startling statement -- America's four TV networks could collapse -- that few outside News Corp. chairman Rupert Murdoch and a handful of media-friendly Wall Street analysts have made public. Even CNN's pro-business "Moneyline" host, Lou Dobbs, remarked on the air it was "just mind boggling that Michael Powell would say that they're [in danger of] a collapse." (Indeed, in a just-completed round of buys, the TV networks are expected to haul in $9 billion in advertising for next year's primetime programming, up 13 percent from last year.)

The ill will between Powell and his consolidation opponents dates back to last year, when the chairman made it clear he was willing to have only one public meeting to hear from proponents and opponents. Determined to generate an actual debate, the two Democratic commissioners organized 10 unofficial forums across the country to hear from the people; Powell boycotted them. At the one FCC-sanctioned event held in late February, "Chairman Powell beat a hasty retreat when the hearings were officially adjourned in the late afternoon," according to an account in TelevisionWeek, an industry trade journal.

Powell countered critics who complained the FCC process was not open enough by noting that the commission had received a record number of public comments regarding the ownership issue and that most of them were filed by private individuals. Usually of interest only to broadcasters and a handful of D.C. communications attorneys, the comment period for media ownership has attracted nearly 20,000 filings. "That's a landslide in terms of comments," says Belendiuk.

Powell agrees. "This record clearly demonstrates that in the digital age you don't need a 19th century whistle-stop tour to hear from America," said the chairman earlier this year, essentially dismissing the hearings organized by the Democratic commissioners as dog-and-pony road shows.

What Powell does not mention, though, is what people are saying in their FCC filings. "The statistics on public comments are just off the charts," says Robert McChesney, coauthor of "Our Media, Not Theirs: The Democratic Struggle Against Corporate Media." "More people want Osama bin Laden up on Mt. Rushmore than want the media companies to consolidate."

A recent examination of 9,360 comments available on the FCC's Web site found 97 percent opposed to further deregulation. After weeding out meticulous position papers in favor of deregulation filed by lobbying groups and attorneys for private companies, researchers from the Future of Music Coalition were able to identify just 11 private citizens who wrote in support of Powell's consolidation agenda.

That 97 percent mark will go up to more than 99 percent, because this week 105,000 National Rifle Association members buried the FCC with comments in opposition to further media mergers. The NRA is nervous that greater consolidation will mean liberal, "gun hating" companies will control the news. At the same time, MoveOn.org, the liberal grassroots organization that sprang up in opposition to President Clinton's impeachment, is preparing to deliver an anti-consolidation petition to the FCC next week. That petition will boast approximately 180,000 signatures.

Yet all indications suggest public comments have had no effect on Powell's position. "If you write a letter saying, 'I'm opposed to this consolidation,' I think it'll be put in a pile and ignored," Belendiuk says. "But when Rupert Murdoch wants to talk to chairman Powell, he'll get all the time he needs."

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