posted 09-18-2003 12:54 AM            

By Peter J. Howe, Globe Staff, 9/17/2003
http://www.boston.com/business/globe/articles/
2003/09/17/new_rules_for_media_rejected_by_senate/

Federal regulators' controversial drive to allow more consolidation of television and media companies drew opposition yesterday from the US Senate, which voted 55-40 to throw out media rules adopted in June by the Federal Communications Commission.

But the Senate "resolution of disapproval," a type of legislation that has been passed just once before, is likely to have only symbolic impact in the near term. House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, a Texas Republican, declared the Senate resolution "dead on arrival" in the lower chamber, and aides to House Speaker Dennis Hastert said they have no plans to bring it up for the House vote needed to make it law.

President Bush has vowed to veto any congressional move overruling the FCC policy changes. Yesterday's vote suggested the Senate would be at least six votes short of overriding a Bush veto.

The FCC media rules, which would let corporations own more TV stations and also own both TV and newspaper properties in all but the smallest markets, have already been plunged into uncertainty by a Sept. 3 ruling by the Philadelphia-based US Circuit Court of Appeals. It delayed their implementation until challenges are heard, probably in early November.

Nevertheless, backers of the Senate move said it represented a clear, bipartisan sign of concern about the prospect of national media conglomerates gaining further control over local TV and radio stations and newspapers. Several senators want to adopt budget bill language, similar to what the House approved this summer, that would specifically block the FCC from allowing single companies like Viacom Inc., News Corp., or General Electric Co.'s NBC unit from owning TV stations reaching 45 percent of US households, up from 35 percent previously.

Senator Byron Dorgan, a North Dakota Democrat who led the push for yesterday's vote, said, "Make no mistake, this is a very big step . . . We're telling the FCC to do it over and do it right." Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison, a Texas Republican, said the FCC rules do "not protect the localism and the diversity, particularly in the newspaper-television market."

Representative Edward J. Markey, a Malden Democrat and ranking member of the House telecommunications subcommittee who has strongly opposed the FCC media ownership changes, praised the Senate vote as a stark repudiation of FCC chairman Michael K. Powell, a Republican who pushed through the changes on a 3-2 party-line vote.

"The Senate's unprecedented rejection of chairman Powell's media ownership rules in their entirety reflects the widespread and growing concern of the American public over the radical sweep of the FCC's media decision," Markey said, adding that "Powell would do well to go back to the drawing board."

Powell again defended the FCC's changes, noting that the commission was under direct court orders to rewrite ownership limits that had been judged unconstitutional and that TV stations face growing competition from satellite, cable, and Internet news sources. If legislators prevail in throwing out the June FCC vote, Powell said, "It would bring no clarity to media regulation, only chaos."

The Bush administration backed Powell, who is the son of Secretary of State Colin L. Powell. "We think the FCC did its job," White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan said. "They took almost two years to develop these rules."

Josh Bernoff, a media analyst with Forrester Research in Cambridge, said, "Obviously, the FCC has moved in a direction that legislators are not comfortable with, but I find this a little mystifying because there's not a huge mass of consumers complaining about the rule changes."

David Kaut, an analyst with Legg Mason, a Baltimore money-management firm, said Senate foes of the FCC changes "fell well short" of getting enough votes to override a Bush veto. But Kaut said the Senate move "does appear to prepare the way for a showdown on separate legislation" to maintain the 35 percent TV-station ownership cap by attaching riders to an FCC budget bill.

The two firms that would be most directly affected by maintaining the old cap are Viacom Inc.'s CBS and UPN units and Rupert Murdoch's News Corp., parent of Fox Television. Both News Corp. and Viacom are now about 4 percent over the 35 percent limit because of short-term FCC waivers.

posted 10-17-2003 12:41 AM            

Hastert ignoring voters on cross-ownership ban

Daily Herald Reports
Posted 10/14/03

Dennis Hastert needs to hear from you, if only to remind him that, even as Speaker of the House, he should serve the interests of voters and not the Bush administration.

The U.S. Senate voted 55-40 last month to roll back Federal Communications Commission "reforms" that would allow fewer big conglomerates to own more of the media. It did so with a "resolution of disapproval" in response to 3 million letters, e-mail messages and petitions sent to Congress and the FCC criticizing the moves.

"Politicians, that's one thing they get," says Robert McChesney, communications professor at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. "This is not a game being played behind closed doors with lobbyists. Once we get people aware of it, the whole game changes.

"All polling data show, the more people know about this issue, the more they oppose relaxing media ownership," he adds. "The policies of who controls the media, how big you let these companies get, do affect the journalism we get. There's a real link there, and the public has a right - in fact, a duty - to enact policies that further the important values the country was founded on."

Yet Hastert says he has no plans to bring the Senate resolution to a vote in the House of Representatives, where Republican Majority Leader Tom DeLay of Texas has pronounced it "dead on arrival." Why would they oppose an action supported by the vast majority of voters, and groups ranging from the National Organization for Women and Common Cause to the National Rifle Association and the Parents Television Council?

Because it's the policy of President Bush and his FCC Chairman Michael Powell to reward longtime supporters like Clear Channel Communications and other big contributors among media conglomerates, McChesney says. So Hastert and DeLay are holding the line against the rollback.

"Bush doesn't want to be put in the position of having to veto this," McChesney says. "If it somehow passed the House, and it were to come to him, he would have on one side the Tribune, Viacom, Rupert Murdoch, General Electric all saying, 'You've got to veto this,' and on the other side he's looking at poll numbers going down, and it's going to be out there that the first veto this guy does is for something the overwhelming majority of Americans across the political spectrum don't like.

"That's why the pressure is on Dennis Hastert and Tom DeLay, to make sure this doesn't come to a vote in the House by any means necessary," McChesney says. "Bush is genuinely concerned this could contribute to him losing an election."

And it's not just party politics. The Yorkville Republican Hastert also has an interest in getting good press from the Chicago Tribune, which has already shown its willingness to use its editorial page in its self-interest to argue for an end to the ban on cross-ownership between newspapers and TV and radio stations.

"The Tribune has been as aggressive on this issue as anyone else," McChesney says. "Their business model is entirely based on getting rid of the cross-ownership ban. Cross-ownership is by far the single most important rule that's being relaxed.

"Hastert, I think, clearly understands that it's in his interest that the Tribune look favorably on him personally," McChesney adds. "He's not going to go against the Tribune."

Not unless voters make him.

That's why McChesney's new group Free Press and many other grassroots organizations, like Chicago Media Action, are urging voters to call or write Hastert and let him know they want the Senate resolution put to a vote in the House. They're also calling on voters to reach their own U.S. representatives and ask them to request a vote. The Free Press Web site, at www.mediareform.net, has links to a petition and to congressional phone numbers.

By the way, Hastert's number is (202) 225-0600.

"We started Free Press with the idea that we would try to get more informed public opinion on media policy," McChesney says. "We envisioned it as a long-term project."

Yet the FCC has focused debate and put groups like Free Press at the forefront. "Especially because this is not an issue that receives much news-media attention," McChesney points out. In nine months, Free Press has amassed an e-mail list of more than 15,000 voters who want to be contacted with news on media issues.

It's an unconventional sideline for a university professor, but one that makes perfect sense. "You can only go so far with your critique," McChesney says. "Eventually, you've got to start talking to people and roll up your sleeves and get to work.

"This isn't a left-right issue," he adds. "It's a big-money-versus-everyone-else issue."

"The policies of who controls the media, how big you let these companies get, do affect the journalism we get"

Robert McChesney, communications professor at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

The Free Press website www.mediareform.net

Ted Cox's column runs Tuesday and Thursday in Suburban Living.

posted 10-17-2003 09:46 AM            

Nope....we definately don't.

Funny how cities like Rome in Italy have about 100 Pirate radio and TV stations.

But oh no...cant have that here in the "Homeland".

Its just an exclusive club here.

posted 10-17-2003 10:15 AM            

I knew a guy in New Jersey years ago, that operated a mobile FM pirate radio, and would travel around the area, and be in a different location every night. He broadcast out of the back of a van, with a hidden transmission antenna, and was never caught.

Clearing the way for The Clear Channelization of the Planet. All the Toby Keith and Ted Nugent you could stomach.

FCC raids pirate station in Castro neighborhood
Low-power broadcast on FM dial for years

James Sullivan, Chronicle Pop Culture Critic Thursday, October 16, 2003

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Federal marshals and representatives of the Federal Communications Commission raided a residence on a quiet block in San Francisco's Castro neighborhood Wednesday, confiscating equipment used to operate an unlicensed, low-power FM radio station.

Volunteers at San Francisco Liberation Radio, which has been on the air for 10 years, said the agents removed an antenna from the roof and seized computers, tape and CD players, turntables, a mixing board and other equipment.

"We were a little surprised," said Charlotte Hatch, who along with her husband, Jim Hatch, has provided space in their building for the station for the past year. "We thought we might have another warning or so."

In July, FCC investigators showed up at the station's doorstep, asking to inspect the equipment. When they were turned away, the agents warned of a potential $17,000 fine.

This time, they brought a search warrant and more than a dozen federal marshals.

No charges have been filed against anyone associated with the station. An agent with the FCC did not return a call late Wednesday seeking comment.

San Francisco Liberation Radio broadcasts "radical progressive" political views and independent music programs at 93.7 FM, reaching listeners as far away as the East Bay. In August, Supervisor and mayoral candidate Matt Gonzalez drafted a resolution supporting the station for its alternative viewpoints.

Liberation Radio attorney Mark Vermeulen, who arrived at the station site shortly after the agents did, explained to the marshals that the station had applied to the FCC for a license in 2000 and had never been officially told it had been denied.

Vermeulen suggested that the FCC has been sending mixed messages to so- called microradio operators, allowing them to apply for a limited number of licenses to the exclusion of stations already broadcasting.

Hatch, whose daughter, Karoline, is a Liberation Radio disc jockey, said she considers the station to be a community service.

"The airwaves belong to the people as of the 1934 Communications Act," said Hatch, 57, who described herself and her 73-year-old husband as "countercultural." "They're like the national parks and the seashores, but they have been preempted by vast corporations. In this day and age, to get a legal station on the dial, you have to have millions of dollars to buy one."

She likened the aims of low-power radio, sometimes called pirate radio, to community access stations on cable television. "But there's no space (on the FM dial) for community access radio, which is basically what we are."

posted 10-17-2003 10:24 AM            

I guess they'd rather give all the channels to AOL/TIMEWARNER/CLEARCHANNEL mindlessness.

More soda pop ads and wal-mart commercials.