House passes bill voiding TV ownership rule
By Jonathan Krim and Christopher Stern
Washington Post
WASHINGTON — The House yesterday approved a bill that would block the Federal Communications Commission from allowing television station ownership to be concentrated in fewer corporate hands.
The FCC provision was part of a larger spending bill that the House passed overwhelmingly yesterday. But the curb on the FCC rules, which occurred Tuesday, was a slap at the House leadership, which had struggled to keep its Republican majority in line and support the FCC.
The Republican majority, however, secured help from many Democrats on Tuesday to thwart an attempt to derail the FCC's plan to allow more newspapers and television stations in the same locale to be owned by the same company.
Senior Democrats convinced many of their colleagues that too many Republicans who had bucked their leaders and supported the television-cap rollback would abandon the bill if the newspaper provision also passed, leaving them with nothing.
(That appears to make it more likely that Honolulu television station KHON, the Fox affiliate with the top-rated local news, and KGMB, the CBS affiliate, will remain jointly owned by Emmis Communications Corp., an Indianapolis-based company. Emmis has owned both stations for more than two years under temporary FCC exemptions.)
If the House provisions are put into law, the most controversial changes in media-ownership rules in a generation likely will be scaled back, although probably not as much as an array of citizen groups and several Democrats had sought. Still, it would be a rare defeat for the GOP and the White House, which had hoped the new rules pushed by Republican FCC chairman Michael Powell would sail through.
Under the House changes, the FCC could not proceed with its plan to allow a single media company to own enough television stations to reach 45 percent of the national audience. Instead, the cap would revert to the 35 percent figure in place before the FCC issued new rules early last month.
The action now moves back to the Senate, where the Commerce Committee already has passed a bill to roll back the TV-ownership cap. That bill also limits the FCC's relaxation of rules governing combined newspaper and television ownership, setting up a potential battle in a conference committee if the full Senate approves the measure.
Spokesmen for key GOP House leaders Tuesday were unconcerned about the House change and said they think they can even restore the 45 percent cap in conference negotiations. They argue that with the GOP controlling both houses of Congress, it is unlikely that a bill that President Bush might veto would get passed.
"Republicans control this place and the last thing they are going to do is embarrass this president," said John Scofield, communications director of the House Appropriations Committee.
Opponents of the television-ownership change say it would lead to further erosion of local control and diversity of news and ideas in an industry already dominated by a handful of mega-corporations. The FCC has argued that in the age of the Internet and cable and satellite television, the old ownership rules made no sense.
Bush has not commented directly, but a statement from the Office of Management and Budget said Bush supports the new rules and that he likely would veto a bill that changed any of them.
Democrats and consumer activists were similarly confident. They noted that many Republicans, especially from rural areas where one or two media outlets dominate the landscape, support scaling back the FCC television cap.
Information on Hawai'i stations was provided by Advertiser staff writer David Butts.
