Harrisburg Delivers Consolidation Complaints to FCC

LOCALS BRING CONSOLIDATION COMPLAINTS TO FCC
[SOURCE: TVWeek, AUTHOR: Ira Teinowitz]
The Federal Communications Commission heard two sides of the media consolidation debate in its third media ownership hearing in Harrisburg, Penn., but its hopes for limiting comments to smaller market issues got sidestepped as residents of Philadelphia, Pittsburgh and Baltimore drove to the hearing to add their concerns about bigger market issues. Consumers questioned further consolidation, said radio consolidation had already gone too far and suggested the little advanced reporting on the hearing by local media was indicative of the effects of consolidation. Broadcasting&Cable reports that the forum was crowded with broadcasters and representatives from several organizations on both sides of the issue applauding the industry including the United Way, the YWCA, The York Jewish Community Center, Salvation Army, the local blood bank, and a representative of the Amber Alert system. That tone was in marked contrast to the industry bashing that predominated the FCC's previous media ownership hearing in Nashville. though ultimately critics weighed in toward the latter half of the hearing. Among those weighing in against more consolidation was a representative of a small newspaper publisher, who argued against lifting the ban on newspaper/broadcast crossownership--a rule will likely survive the FCC's review of planned rule changes.
http://www.tvweek.com/news.cms?newsId=11604
(requires free registration)
http://www.broadcastingcable.com/article/CA6418989.html?display=Breaking...

See also
* Free Press Counters NAB's Request for Speaker ID's at FCC Hearing
[SOURCE: Broadcasting&Cable, AUTHOR: John Eggerton]
Activist group Free Press has taken issue with a National Association of Broadcasters request that the FCC should require commenters at its public hearing on Friday, February 23 to identify where they were lived. In the end, the FCC did not require speakers to identify themselves geographically.
http://www.broadcastingcable.com/article/CA6419187.html?display=Breaking...

* FCC Debates Relaxing Media Ownership Rules
http://www.njtelecomupdate.com/lenya/telco/live/tb-AKMT1172496579949.htm...

BROADCASTERS MAKE THEIR CASE TO FCC AT MEDIA OWNERSHIP FORUM IN HARRISBURG
[SOURCE: Broadcasting&Cable, AUTHOR: John Eggerton]
Broadcasters made their case for loosening media ownership rules at the FCC's media ownership hearing in Harrisburg on Friday. The first speaker was Bill Baldwin, an executive with Hall Communications, owner of 21 radio stations including in nearby York and Harrisburg (PA). He said that his stations are run by local managers and that 50% of the employees are women. He said his employees devote 30,000 minutes annually to public service spots, and invest in local news and public affairs. They also hire local talent and the average length of service is 20 years. "Turnover is something we don't know much about," Baldwin said. The stations are also involved with food banks, hospices, Make a Wish, Habitat for Humanity, rescue missions, Big Brothers, Big Sisters, United Way, among others. To make Baldwin's point, the head of the local United Way praised broadcaster commitment to the organization, including emceeing events and producing campaign videos at no charge. Also making the broadcasters' case was Paul Quinn, President/GM of Hearst-Argyle's WGAL-TV, who said local service is a core mission. Quinn said that his station does more than 30 hours of local news, 20-plus hours of public affairs and national news, has a 24-7 local weather channel, raised more than $10 million for local charities last year, and 16 town meetings. He also said that during the 2006 election, like all Hearst-Argyle stations, provided at least 10 minutes per day for candidate-centered political coverage. Because of its vast resources, he said, the station "was able to stream this meeting over our station's Web site." Given unprecedented competition, including competitors that were not around in 2003 when the FCC first tried to loosen ownership rules. "We will not be able to serve communities if the rules are not brought into conformance with today's realities," Quinn said. There was even a working broadcaster in attendance with a six-week-old baby in her arms arguing that "Big Media" had given her the flexibility to be both broadcaster and mom.
http://www.broadcastingcable.com/article/CA6418989.html?display=Breaking...

FCC'S MARTIN FLOATS LEASED MULTICAST MUST-CARRY PROPOSAL
[SOURCE: Broadcasting&Cable, AUTHOR: John Eggerton]
FCC Chairman Kevin Martin used the media ownership public hearing in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania to publicly push a new multicasting approach he had earlier pitched privately to minority media interests and broadcast and cable lobbies. In his public statement before the hearing , he said the commission needs to "find more opportunities for diverse viewpoints to be heard. "Part of the problem is the limited number of channels available on broadcast television and radio and the high start-up cost of building your own station." He pointed to low-power FM radio as one attempt by the FCC to increase that number of voices. He also said that it would allow small and independently owned businesses to lease some of an existing broadcaster's spectrum to distribute their own programming. "Conversion to digital operations enables broadcasters to fit a single channel of analog programming into a smaller amount of spectrum," he told the crowd. "Often, there is additional spectrum left over that can be used to air other channels of programming. Small and independently owned businesses could take advantage of this capacity and use a portion of the existing broadcasters’ digital spectrum to operate their own broadcast channel. This new programming station would then obtain all the accompanying rights and obligations of other broadcast stations, such as public interest obligations and carriage rights."
http://www.broadcastingcable.com/article/CA6419183.html?display=Breaking...
* Link to martin's Statement: http://hraunfoss.fcc.gov/edocs_public/attachmatch/DOC-270765A1.doc

-- More Opening Statements --
* Copps: " Don't believe anyone who tells you that big media's push for more consolidation has gone away. I've seen their very recent pleadings at the FCC. They're still marching along behind that same Pied Piper of Consolidation they've been following for years. They haven't gone away, and their lawyers and lobbyists haven't gone away either. They have money and they have power. So if we are going to succeed in this-and go on from there to a broader national dialogue on the future of the media in our democracy-a discussion that has been too long delayed and too long denied-it will be because of citizen action from millions of Americans and testimony at hearings like this one."
http://hraunfoss.fcc.gov/edocs_public/attachmatch/DOC-270758A1.doc

* Adelstein: "The problem can be seen here in Harrisburg because the statistics speak for themselves. According to Consumer Federation and Free Press, just four companies control over 79 percent of the Harrisburg area news market. There are three companies that own 60 percent of the commercial radio stations, with one owning 6 stations, thus creating a market where non-local entities own nearly 75 percent of the radio stations. This is especially discouraging when considering that there are no locally owned commercial news stations. There are no full-power commercial TV stations owned by a racial or ethnic minority in the Harrisburg area, and none are owned by women."
http://hraunfoss.fcc.gov/edocs_public/attachmatch/DOC-270762A1.doc

* Tate: "Given the important role that the broadcast media play in our democratic society's marketplace of ideas, I am committed to working with my FCC colleagues to ensure that our actions further the touchstone goals of competition, localism, and diversity."
http://hraunfoss.fcc.gov/edocs_public/attachmatch/DOC-270759A1.doc

* McDowell: "In particular I look forward to learning about competition, diversity and localism in the Harrisburg market from all of you. We need the first-hand knowledge that only you can provide about how our ownership rules affect you as businesspeople and as viewers and listeners so that we can determine whether the times demand that those rules change."
http://hraunfoss.fcc.gov/edocs_public/attachmatch/DOC-270763A1.doc

DOYLE SAYS NON-NEUTRAL NET ISN'T COMPETING VOICE
[SOURCE: Broadcasting&Cable, AUTHOR: John Eggerton]
Rep. Mike Doyle (D-PA), vice chairman of the House Telecommunications Subcommittee, weighed in remotely at the FCC's media ownership public hearing in Harrisburg, Pa., Friday (Feb. 23) to say the existence of the Web, particularly without network neutrality guarantees, should not be used to justify further media ownership consolidation. In a letter that he asked to be read into the record of the hearing, Rep Doyle said that "then-Chairman Michael Powell made the mistake of acting as if the Internet was an independent source of national and local news -- a mistake repudiated by the 3rd Circuit Court of Appeals when they remanded the Commission's rules on this very point," he said. Rep Doyle said that though he believed the 'net "has the potential to give everyone an equal platform to report about and opine on the goings-on around them," and that "an open and free Internet could be considered the first truly accessible tool to make the spirit of First Amendment come alive for everyone in the country," he also said that "without an Internet available to all that guarantees fast speeds to anyone's content, that potential is just a promise."
http://www.broadcastingcable.com/article/CA6419376.html?display=Breaking...