[DMCA-Activists] 3rd Circuit Reverses FCC Media Ownership Rule Changes

[Seth Johnson]

-------- Original Message --------
  Subject: pho: YN: 3rd Cicrcuit reverses FCC rule changes!
    Date: Thu, 24 Jun 2004 15:08:59 -0700 (PDT)
    From: Jay Flemma <address@hidden>
      To: address@hidden



Court Reverses FCC Media Ownership Rules 

By SETH SUTEL, AP Business Writer

NEW YORK - A federal appeals court on Thursday largely reversed a  landmark
set of rule changes from the Federal Communications  Commission (news - web
sites) that would have allowed companies to own  more radio and television
stations in the same market. 

The decision by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit in
Philadelphia marked a major  setback to the FCC (news - web sites)'s efforts
to deregulate media ownership rules and a  victory for public interest
groups that had opposed the measures. 

The rule changes have been the subject of much debate about the
concentration of media  ownership ever since they were announced in June
2003. The plaintiffs against the FCC said  the rules would limit the
diversity of voices on the airwaves, while the FCC said the old rules had 
become outdated. 

The court also kept in place an order it made last September blocking the
rules from taking  effect. 

In their 2-to-1 decision, the judges threw out rules that would have allowed
greater ownership of  television and radio stations in the same market.
However, they also found that the FCC was  within its rights to repeal a
blanket prohibition on companies owning both a newspaper and a  television
station in the same city. 

"This is a big, big win for diversity," said Andrew Jay Schwartzman, CEO of
the Media Access  Project, a Washington, D.C.-based public interest law firm
that led the lawsuit against the FCC. 

"The court recognized that debate and democratic values are more important
than letting big  media corporations grow bigger," Schwartzman said. "It's
especially important that the court has  told the FCC to remove its
deregulatory thumb from the scales." 

Schwartzman said he was slightly disappointed that the court did not reverse
the FCC's move to  repeal the ban on cross-ownership of newspapers and TV
stations in the same city, but he  noted that the court asked the FCC to
reconsider the decision in light of Thursday's ruling. 

FCC chairman Michael Powell called the court's decision "deeply troubling"
and said it  "hampers the flexibility of the agency to protect the American
public." 

Powell noted that the court's Chief Judge Anthony Scirica dissented from the
ruling, saying that  the court "has substituted its own policy judgment for
that of the FCC and upset the ongoing  review of broadcast media regulation
mandated by Congress." 

But consumer advocates and other opponents of the FCC's efforts to
deregulate media  ownership were quick to hail the court's decision. 

Gene Kimmelman, senior public policy director for Consumers Union, one of
the plaintiffs, called  the Third Circuit court's ruling "a complete
repudiation of rules that would allow one or two media  giants to dominate
the most important sources of local news and information in almost every 
community in America." 

FCC Commissioner Michael J. Copps saw the decision as vindication of his
vote against the  rules. "The rush to media consolidation approved by the
FCC last June was wrong as a matter  of law and policy," Copps said. 

"The Commission has a second chance to do the right thing. We must
immediately move  forward and redesign our media policy," he said. "This
time we must include the American  people in the process instead of shutting
them out." 

The cross-ownership issue had been closely watched by newspaper publishers
that also own  TV stations, such as Tribune Co. and Media General Inc. Both
companies are pursuing  strategies of owning clusters of newspapers and TV
in the same market. 

John Sturm, CEO of the Newspaper Association of America, said the group was
pleased that  the court left in place the FCC's decision to repeal the
across-the-board ban on  cross-ownership. He said the industry would
continue to press its case for making such  combinations possible. 

The court's ruling does not affect a separate issue of national limits on
broadcast ownership.  Last year the FCC raised the limits on the size of the
national audience that can be reached by  a single owner of TV stations from
35 percent to 45 percent, but Congress later passed a law  that put in place
a cap of 39 percent. 

___ 

Associated Press reporter Jennifer C. Kerr in Washington, D.C., contributed
to this report. 

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