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Handling Big Media Is a Big Responsibility, Says FCC Commissioner
Media conglomerates pose a serious threat to independence and diversity within the news and entertainment marketplace. As the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) prepares to vote this spring on future media concentration restrictions, Commissioner Michael J. Copps worries that he and his colleagues are unaware of the full spectrum of consequences caused by conglomeration.
“I am frankly concerned about consolidation and I am particularly concerned that we are rushing toward this high-noon vote in a couple of months without the kind of national dialogue that the issue clearly deserves because it effects all of us,” said Copps to a standing-room-only crowd in Walsh Library’s Flom Auditorium during the McGannon Lecture on Communication Politics and Ethics.
Current provisions limit a single corporation from controlling local television; from merging a community’s television stations, radio stations and newspapers; from merging two of the major TV networks; and from reaching more than 35 percent of all households in the nation. Under the leadership of Chairman Michael Powell, the FCC began reviewing the current restrictions last September in order to vote on whether to modify, retain or discard them.
In discussing the future landscape, Copps reflected on the precedent set by radio, whose concentration restrictions were loosened by Congress and the FCC in the late 1990s. As a result of this shift, most radio markets have become oligopolies. There are now 34 percent fewer radio station owners in the country than there were in 1996.
“If you like what eliminating concentration protections did for radio, then you’ll probably love what it’s probably going to do for television and cable,” said Copps.
Copps noted how some people are not concerned with the thought of the same five companies dominating the media because they feel that new and sprawling media, like the Internet, will safeguard society from this dominance. But according to Copps, people felt the same way when cable television first came onto the scene in the 1980s and now 90 percent of the nation’s top 50 cable channels are controlled by the same corporations.
In the Feb. 5 lecture titled “Stand Up or Stand By: Media Consolidation and the Public Interest,” Copps announced that the FCC will host hearings next month in Washington and North Carolina. He feels that holding a meeting on each coast will be a step in the right direction since the Commission will be seeking input from the group whose interest is paramount to the FCC’s cause—the public.
“I have invited each of the other Commissioners to these hearings, which will give us the opportunity to receive testimony from interested parties in regions directly impacted by our decisions,” said Copps. “We can’t pretend everyone reads the Federal Register or has lobbyists to make their voice heard at the FCC. We have a responsibility to reach out.”
Named after the late Donald McGannon, a Fordham alumnus and former general executive and chairman of the board of Westinghouse Broadcasting Company, the Donald McGannon Communications Research Center opened at Fordham in 1986. McGannon's dedication to ethics and socially responsible communication policy is the foundation of the center’s operations.
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Commissioner Michael J. Copps
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