He's Had Enough of You

HE'S HAD ENOUGH OF YOU
[SOURCE: AdAge, AUTHOR: Mya Frazier]
It is likely that few things keep Rupert Murdoch and Sam Zell up at night more than the prospect of Michael Copps becoming FCC chairman. Unlike Chairman Kevin Martin, Mr. Copps surely would not be a friend to Big Media. So far, as one of only two Democratic commissioners -- outvoted at practically every turn by three Republicans -- he's had little ability to actually push his vision of "media democracy" and has instead been limited to writing scathing dissents and firing up activists outside the Beltway. But it's been an effective strategy nonetheless. "He has been, by far, the most effective FCC commissioner in a minority role that I have seen in 37 years of working with the FCC," said Andrew Schwartzman, president-CEO of the Media Access Project, which has fought media consolidation via the courts. "I have never seen anyone play a bad hand as well as he has." He added: "I would hate to be in a poker game with him." Come 2009, the new president will appoint his or her own FCC chairman. And a Copps appointment would give him power to set the agenda, block media mergers with some help from Congress and overhaul the license-renewal process for broadcasters, a process he has called "slipshod." (He proposed shortening the eight-year cycle to three in a New York Times editorial last year.) In other words, every three years the likes of Messrs. Murdoch and Zell would be asked if they were serving the public interest and should keep their broadcast licenses.
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