Another TV duopoly is a bad idea in Miami

[Commentary] Will it be in the public interest if two Miami television stations that have for decades competing in local news are owned by the same company? The Federal Communications Commission has been approving TV duopolies willy-nilly (South Florida has three) over the last decade, mostly of the big-fish-eat-little-fish variety. And the FCC seems likely to approve the latest proposal from Post-Newsweek. The FCC buys into the argument, pushed hard by the National Association of Broadcasters, that consolidation enables local stations to create super-duper news operations. "We think it's a terrible idea," said Marvin Ammori of Free Press, a public interest watchdog. Ammori said "the weight of the evidence" shows that the 80 or so TV duopolies blessed by the FCC usually resulted in a net loss in local news coverage. Mark Cooper, director of research for the Consumer Federation of America, said, "Our concern is that they tend to save money by cutting back on reporters. You get fewer reporters on certain beats. You lose competition. You lose diversity in news coverage. Discourse is diminished. We're convinced it hurts the public interest." "We're unhappy with consolidation, in general, but the prospect of two network affiliates owned by one company in a major market is especially unsettling," said Andrew Schwartzman, president of the Media Access Project, yet another advocacy group worried that the FCC is putting industry wants ahead of the public interest. Schwartzman said, "Our experience is that duopolies have produced few if any palpable benefits for the public." But he predicted the FCC would again say yes.