Chicago’s Media: The Federal Communications Commission Is Reviewing Ownership Rules

The Telecommunications Act of 1996 directs the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to reexamine its broadcast ownership rules every few years and repeal or modify any regulation it determines to be no longer in the public interest. Currently, the FCC is reviewing broadcast ownership rules including: the national television multiple ownership rule, the local television multiple ownership rule, the radio-television cross-ownership rule, the dual network rule, the local radio ownership rule and the newspaper/broadcast cross-ownership rule.

Since October 2006, the FCC has been holding occasional hearings in various US cities in an attempt to involve the public in its review of media ownership rules. On Thursday September 20, 2007, FCC commissioners will attend a public hearing on media ownership in Chicago, Illinois at Operation PUSH National Headquarters.(1) This hearing is the fifth in a series of six media ownership hearings the Commission intends to hold across the country.(2)

If the FCC is concerned about diversity of ownership and viewpoints represented in the media, Chicago is the perfect place to hold a public hearing. Chicago is the nation’s third most-populous city. As of the 2000 census, there were 2,896,016 people, 1,061,928 households, and 632,909 families residing within Chicago’s 227 square miles. This encompasses about one-fifth of the entire population of the state of Illinois and 1% of the population of the United States.

The face of Chicago is a diverse face. The city’s population is 42% White, 36.8% Black or African-American, 26% Hispanic or Latino, 4.3% Asian and Pacific Islander, 2.9% from two or more races, and 0.4% Native-American. Of the city population, 26.2% are under the age of 18 and 10.3% are 65 years of age or older. Nearly one-fifth of Chicagoans live below the poverty line. Nearly 22% of Chicagoans were born in a foreign country and over 35% live in a home where a language other than English is spoken.

Chicago's citizens speak over 100 different languages, and draw from a diverse range of peoples, cultures and religions. Chicago has large populations of Irish, Poles, Germans, Czechs, Swedes, Italians, Bulgarians, Serbs, Lithuanians, Romanians, Assyrians, and Arabs. The city is the seat of the head of the Assyrian Church of the East, Mar Dinkha IV, the Evangelical Covenant Church, and the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America headquarters.

• Chicago has the second largest African American population in the US, behind only New York City.
• Chicago has the second largest Mexican population in the United States after Los Angeles.
• Chicago has the largest population of Swedish Americans of any city in the U.S. with approximately 123,000.
• Chicago has the largest ethnically Polish population outside of Krakow, Poland
• Chicago currently has the third largest Greek population of any city in the world.
• Chicago has the second-largest Puerto Rican population in the continental United States.
• Chicago has the third-largest South Asian population in the United States.
• Chicago has one of the largest concentrations of Italian Americans in the US