WASHINGTON FCC members debate ownership rules for media

Other regulators say free TV is alive and well.
WASHINGTON (AP) -- Keeping current media ownership rules in place could squeeze the broadcast networks and drive them to end free TV, FCC Chairman Michael Powell said Tuesday, campaigning for the changes he favors.
Another Federal Communications Commission member said the changes Powell wants will lead to "more sensationalism, more crassness," more sameness and less serious news coverage.
Powell said adjustments are needed to reflect a market changed by cable TV, satellite broadcasts and the Internet. He also said if the FCC fails to act, outdated rules will be swept away by court challenges.
"What I worry about is that all of the rules will be eliminated -- not by us, but a judicial regime," he said. "If you don't do surgery on this patient, it is going to die. Free over-the-air TV is going to die. The rules are going to die."
Critics of plan
Critics say altering the decades-old rules governing ownership of newspapers and TV and radio stations will kick off a merger frenzy and put a few corporations in control of what people watch, read and hear.
"We are on the eve of the most sweeping and potentially destructive overhaul of the FCC's media rules in the history of media broadcasting," Commissioner Jonathan Adelstein said. More mergers, he said, will "spell more sensationalism, more crassness, homogenization and even less serious news coverage than we have today."
Powell agreed that some limits are needed. He said the FCC's new rules will protect competition and diverse and local viewpoints while permitting beneficial mergers.
He said the changes also are needed to protect media sources people take for granted.
Sports broadcasting
He argued that restrictions currently in place make it harder for broadcasters to compete with cable and satellite in sports broadcasting, for instance. "I don't think people who have $60 to $80 a month should be the only ones who see the sports season, which is increasingly the case in America."
Adelstein disagreed with Powell's reasoning, saying, "Free over-the-air television is alive and well."
Adelstein and fellow Democratic Commissioner Michael Copps joined with about two dozen groups opposed to the deregulation favored by Powell and the commission's two other Republicans.
The FCC is considering eliminating many of the restrictions on a single company owning combinations of newspapers and TV and radio stations in the same city. Another proposal would raise a cap preventing one company from owning TV stations that reach more than 35 percent of U.S. households.
Supporters of the existing rules including consumer advocates, small broadcasters, writers, musicians and academics say restrictions are needed because most people get their news primarily from TV and newspapers.
Critics worry television could become like radio: Deregulation in 1996 allowed companies to amass hundreds of stations and cut costs by replacing local shows with national programming.