A divided decision by federal communications regulators this week to loosen ownership rules for media companies revealed a sharp split among policy-makers in measuring the extent to which technology has affected the diversity of news coverage.
In a ruling that essentially did what media reports had predicted, the Federal Communications Commission voted Monday to toss out or modify a number of restrictions placed on broadcasters and news publishers between the 1940s and 1970s in an effort to prevent local media monopolies.
While such rules may have made sense decades ago, FCC commissioners who supported Monday's ruling argued the restrictions were outdated in an era of broadband Internet, cable and direct broadcast satellite.
In a statement issued Monday, Commissioner Kathleen Abernathy, one of three Republicans who backed the measure (which passed by a three-to-two margin), concluded that consolidation of media is less problematic now that the public has more sources of information from which to choose.
"Democracy and civic discourse were not dead in America when there were only three to four stations in most markets in the 1960s and 1970s, and they will surely not be dead in this century when there are, at a minimum, four to six independent broadcasters in most markets, plus hundreds of cable channels and unlimited Internet voices," she wrote.
But while Republican commissioners, including Chairman Michael Powell and Commissioner Kevin Martin along with Abernathy, believed loosening ownership caps would help media businesses, the FCC's two Democratic commissioners took an opposing view. By focusing too much on the number of channels of content available, they said, deregulation enthusiasts were missing a crucial point.
Although technology has certainly opened up new avenues for distribution, FCC Commissioner Michael Copps, a Democrat, noted that newer outlets are still largely owned by a small group of big media conglomerates.
"Those who believe the Internet alone will save us from this fate should realize that the dominating Internet news sources are controlled by the same media giants who control radio, TV, newspapers and cable," he said.
Copps was joined by fellow Democratic Commissioner Jonathan Adelstein in opposing the rule change. Adelstein claimed that the reduction in ownership caps would leave the FCC a "toothless tiger" in safeguarding the public's best interest in governing the airwaves.
"As big media companies get bigger, they're likely to broadcast even more homogenized programming that increasingly appeals to the lowest common denominator," he wrote. "If this is the toaster with pictures, soon only Wonder Bread will pop out."
But Adelstein's arguments failed to sway a majority of his colleagues. Instead, the majority voted to modify a number of decades-old rules, including a ban on joint ownership of a newspaper and a broadcast station in the same city, which the FCC largely eliminated while leaving some restrictions in place for smaller communities.
The FCC also decided that a single company can now own TV stations that reach 45 percent of U.S. households, up from 35 percent, and eased rules governing local TV station ownership, allowing a single company to operate two television stations in more markets and three stations in the largest cities.
In addition, the FCC changed how local radio markets are defined, in a move to resolve a problem that has let companies exceed ownership limits in some areas.
In most aspects, the decision was a blow to a politically diverse coalition of special interest groups that had lobbied against the rule change. Deregulation opponents included such strange bedfellows as the National Rifle Association, the Catholic Conference, the Writers Guild of America, the National Organization for Women and Consumers Union, who argued that loosening the restrictions would hinder the diversity of viewpoints in local media.
"It was what we expected in the sense that the proposal had already leaked out through the press," said Chris Murray, legislative counsel for Consumers Union, of the decision. "But if we take a step back and look at where we started, a lot of what was in there was rather shocking."
Murray was particularly displeased that regulators did not apply the lessons learned from radio consolidation -- in which industry leader Clear Channel has been widely criticized for dominating local airwaves -- to the television industry.
While the FCC appeared to pay some heed to Clear Channel critics in its decision to revise radio market definitions, television network owners will be allowed to expand further. This dichotomy made little sense, Murray said, since "radio is in almost every market across the country less concentrated than television."
Murray also didn't buy the argument that the Internet will be the great savior of diversity in local news, noting that the most popular news sites typically are owned by the dominant local news publishers.
"When you have huge consolidation of the largest offline sources, we'll also see consolidation of the largest online sources, making it harder for new entrants to establish a presence," he said.
John Dunbar, telecommunications project manager at the Center for Public Integrity, worried that a spate of media mergers could leave viewers confused about who owns their local news providers.
"You're still going to have a number of separate and distinct voices in your market," he said. "The question is: Do you know who they are?" If consolidation goes unchecked, the channels and publications viewers turn to for diverse viewpoints could actually share the same parent company.
On the other end of the political spectrum, techno-libertarians didn't think the FCC eliminated enough outdated rules.
"It is not the sort of sweeping deregulation that many people feared and people like myself actually hoped for," said Adam Thierer, director of technology studies at the free market-oriented Cato Institute.
Thierer said he believes commissioners were right to focus on the impact of new technology in their decision to ease ownership restrictions. With more than four out of five households currently receiving cable or satellite television, traditional broadcasters are seeing their shares of the viewing audience slip.
In Washington, reaction to the FCC decision was mixed, and not distributed along party lines.
House Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Billy Tauzin (R-La.) spoke out in favor of the ruling Monday, saying the FCC had "taken a big step toward removing the regulatory muzzle from American broadcasters."
In the Senate, both Sen. Trent Lott (R-Miss.) and Sen. Russ Feingold (D-Wis.) criticized the ruling, which Feingold said could "threaten to undermine the diversity of voices in the television and newspaper industries."
Members of the Senate Commerce Committee will have a chance to personally grill FCC commissioners Wednesday at a hearing scheduled by Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.). The hearing is intended to help lawmakers understand how the agency settled on the specific limitations laid out this week.
