TV station ownership rules likely to be altered
Advertiser News Services
WASHINGTON — A U.S. appeals court yesterday ordered federal regulators to justify a long-standing rule barring media companies from owning more than one TV station in about half of the nation's television markets.
The FCC rule lets a company own two stations in a single market when at least eight other independently owned stations are broadcasting. One of the stations owned by the company must not be among the four most-viewed TV outlets in a market.
That effectively prohibits duopolies in about 150 small and mid-sized U.S. TV markets, such as Dayton, Ohio, and Charleston, S.C.
The court said the Federal Communications Commission's TV ownership restriction is arbitrary because it does not include newspapers, cable TV systems and radio stations when measuring diversity, competition and the number of "voices" available to an audience.
"We hold that the definition of 'voices' in the local ownership rule is arbitrary and capricious," the three-judge panel wrote.
FCC spokesman David Fiske said the agency was studying the court's decision and had no immediate comment.
Yesterday's ruling marked the fourth time in 18 months that federal judges have overturned or set aside FCC regulations limiting media ownership.
Acquisition-minded media giants such as News Corp. and Viacom Corp. have been pushing Washington to change ownership rules so they can expand their empires.
Consumer groups and some lawmakers, however, have risen up against the prospect of further media consolidation, arguing that it would put greater control over news, information and entertainment into the hands of just a few giant companies.
The ruling does not appear to affect Hawai'i's television market because it does not ask the FCC to justify its rule prohibiting one company from controlling two of the top four television stations in a single market.
Emmis Communications Corp., which owns Honolulu television stations KHON and KGMB, has been operating both stations under a waiver from the FCC pending efforts to sell one of the stations.
