FCC Media Ownership and Deregulation

Ownership Restrictions, Bias in the Media, and Localism Issues

This paper will focus on the Federal Communication Commission's (FCC's) proposed deregulation policy for media ownership. The policy would give companies the ability to own more television stations and the ability to own newspapers and broadcast stations in the same market. Television markets are based on Nielsen Designated Market Area (DMA) (Appendix G). Since big media companies own most media outlets, it is predicted that coverage on this issue would be conservative, as the media would use its power to sway public opinion and government leaders toward lessening the rules.

On June 4, 2003, the FCC voted to raise the limit on the number of television stations a company can own. In the past, companies could own enough television stations to reach 35% of Americans but under the new rule, it would be 45%. This means, for example, that ABC could own almost half of its affiliates throughout the country. More television stations will resemble WABC. WABC in New York City is owned by ABC and all content comes from ABC except for the local news. Under past rules, companies were restricted to owning only two television stations in a big city but the new rule would allow companies to own three television stations in the same city. The old rules prohibited the same company to own a newspaper and broadcast station in the same market but the new rules would take away this prohibition (Klein & Wise, 2003). Most Republicans support loosening past FCC rules on media companies while most Democrats support staying with the original rules that were created between 1941 and 1975 (Labaton, 6/5/03). These rules were enacted to promote diverse opinions in the media, encourage competition, and prevent a few big companies from controlling the entire media industry. State regulators could recommend that the FCC prohibit mergers in smaller markets in which one company might attempt to buy up and control all of the media in the market (Ho, 6/19/03).