Court opens door on deregulation

Tuesday, March 23, 2010

Washington, DC-- The U.S. Third Circuit Court of Appeals dealt a blow to media justice on Tuesday, allowing a single company to own even more news outlets in a given community. In the latest news from the landmark Prometheus vs. FCC case, the Court has lifted a stay against the Federal Communications Commission. The stay had prevented the FCC from allowing a single media company to own a newspaper and broadcast TV station in the same market.

In Prometheus Radio Project v. FCC, dozens of citizen groups and broadcasters challenged the FCC's 2003 attempt at dismantling the broadcast media ownership rules. The Third Circuit Court sided with Prometheus and our attorneys at the Media Access Project, blocking deregulation that would have dramatically homogenized media ownership.

In 2007, the FCC again tried to revoke the ban on newspaper/broadcast cross-ownership, by permitting cross-ownership in the top 20 markets and creating a waiver process elsewhere. These new rules were again blocked by the court stay.

Because of Tuesday's court decision, the 2007 rules are now in effect until the original case is settled, or the FCC reverses them, a possibility given the turnover in the Commission since that time.

"We urge the FCC to end its unhappy marriage to the bankrupt ideology of deregulation. Bit by bit, deregulation has decimated media diversity over the past twenty five years, leaving us with fewer independent voices to cover local issues," said Pete Tridish of the Prometheus Radio Project. "Now more than ever, communities need more local media, not less."

The FCC had asked the Court to delay until the FCC's own quadrennial review of its rules is complete, but that review is still ongoing. An April 20 workshop in Tampa, Florida will examine the newspaper-broadcast cross-ownership rule. In a unique situation that predates the 1975 ban on cross-ownership, Media General owns both the Tampa Tribune and WFLA News Channel 8.

"We hope that folks who are concerned about shrinking newsrooms in Tampa Bay will come out to the workshop and tell the FCC what they've seen," said Tridish. "Tampa is lucky to have both the St. Pete Times and the Tampa Tribune, but many large markets have even fewer daily news sources. If the FCC expands cross-ownership in a blanket fashion, the number of independent, local news sources will only continue to shrink."

The Tampa workshop will be at the Marshall Student Center at the University of South Florida, 4202 E Fowler Avenue, Tampa, Florida, from 3:00 to 7:30 pm. More information is at fcc.gov/ownership