• by John Gaffney , January 5, 2003

The battle lines have been clearly drawn in the debate over the FCC’s proposal to relax media ownership rules. Media owners will fight to eradicate all media ownership restrictions. On the other side, ad agencies and consumer groups of media trade associations will fight to keep them in place.

Thursday and Friday of last week saw a flurry of responses to the FCC’s series of reports that seemed to support a laissez faire media market. Viacom, Fox and NBC filed requests to abandon the rules last week. The National Association of Broadcasters changed its mind and agreed in media ownership repeal because networks no longer have a “preeminent” competitive advantage. The Newspaper Association of America said there was “overwhelming evidence” the repeal the rules.

“The record at the FCC establishes conclusively that full repeal would do absolutely no harm and, perhaps more importantly, promises positive benefits to the public through enhanced broadcast services to local communities by newspaper-owned stations,” said NAA President and Chief Executive Officer John F. Sturm.

The other side spoke clearly against what seems to be an ebb tide of support for the changes. The American Federation of Television and Radio Artists (AFTRA) in conjunction with the Writers Guild of America, said in its response that "promoting viewpoint diversity must continue to be the commission's primary goal in its mission to protect the public interest," and therefore the unions call for restrictions to remain in place for each of the rules being reviewed.”

The AFTRA document calls on the FCC to mandate source diversity -- defined as independent ownership over media outlets. “It is necessary and appropriate for the Commission to maintain the remaining ownership rules in order to protect diversity and localism in the news and information available to the general public, to protect against anti-competitive business practices, and to prevent any further erosion of innovation in media programming."