Duopolies May be Left Behind in Dereg Push

DUOPOLIES MAY BE LEFT BEHIND IN DEREG PUSH
[SOURCE: tvnewsday, AUTHOR: Harry A. Jessell, hajessell@tvnewsday.com]
[Commentary] Amid the renewed uproar over media consolidation, Federal Communications Commission Chairman Kevin Martin will likely jettison consideration of small-market duopolies to get what he really wants -- elimination of the broadcast-newspaper crossownership rule. That’s as it should be. Repeal of the crossownership ban is long overdue -- and increasingly necessary. At the very least, the FCC has to take care of Tribune so it can go private, either by granting waivers or by repealing the rule in large markets. Standing in the way of Tribune’s deal would be unconscionable, and I think everybody on the commission -- even Michael Copps -- knows that. But it’s a shame that Martin will have to sacrifice action on small-market duopolies for the sake of the newspapers because of ill-informed outrage over media consolidation. The fact is there are plenty of small-market duopolies today and there's evidence that the small-market duopolies are not bad things, but simply natural marketplace responses to fragmenting audiences and shrinking margins. They have strengthened small-market broadcasting, not weakened it. No doubt, some of these so-called virtual duopolies have resulted in the loss of independent news voices in their markets. One newsroom produces news for two stations. But in most cases the lost independent voice was the third- or fourth-rated newscast in the market and doomed anyway. Listen to the media critics at the public hearings. They want diversity of viewpoints, they want aggressive and honest reporting, they want insightful analysis and they want bold commentary. The broadcasters’ argument is that government cannot deliver any of those things. In fact, government, by its nature, is hostile to those goals. That’s why we have a First Amendment -- to protect media from government. In sort of an unplanned, messy, random fashion, Washington has dealt with the media ownership issue in exactly the right way over the past quarter century. It has gradually relaxed broadcast ownership restrictions in a series of widely spaced FCC and congressional actions, giving the country time to absorb each of the changes and giving broadcasters a chance to meet the competition.
http://www.tvnewsday.com/articles/2007/10/26/daily.4/