Powell and his allies plan to shelve the 28-year-old rule that bars joint ownership of a newspaper and a TV station in the same city; the rule that bars any network from owning TV stations with a combined reach of more than 35 percent of the U.S. viewing audience (by raising the bar to 45 percent); and the rule that says a company can own only two TV stations in the largest cities.
The move could trigger a financial windfall for the big media conglomerates that lobbied hardest: Rupert Murdoch's News Corp. (Fox), Viacom (CBS), Disney (ABC), AOL Time Warner, NBC, Gannett, and the Tribune Co.
And they apparently will get their wish, despite vocal opposition from critics that include Ted Turner and the leaders of the National Rifle Association, who believe that unshackled companies would be bad for democracy, imperiling the public's right to "the widest possible dissemination of information from diverse and antagonistic sources," as decreed by U.S. Supreme Court Justice Hugo Black in 1945.
The media firms, in their filings to the FCC, declare: "(T)here is no longer any public interest need served by the commission's media ownership rules." They say that "market forces" would guide their corporate behavior and "ensure diversity, competition and localism."
Powell, who says his critics sound like Chicken Little, says in his speeches that the FCC's rules are obsolete in the modern era, and that media companies - faced with competition from a range of new information sources, including the Internet - should have far more flexibility to buy and sell properties as they please, thereby allowing them to "adapt, respond and survive."
Powell's detractors contend that he is essentially reducing the diversity of media voices, condoning the homogeneity of news and entertainment, and indulging the biggest firms in their desire to maximize profits with scant regard for the common good.
