US House Gives Small Victory Against Broadcast Media Giants

Tomorrow marks the 74th anniversary of the Communications Act of 1934, the framework for federal regulation of the then "new media" and communications through the Federal Communications Commission. The Act secured the airwaves as public resources, with modest public service requirements for licensing parts of the broadcast spectrum. The New Deal ideal of public service has eroded, especially in the past 25 years.

Fittingly, on June 16, near the anniversary of the orginal legislation, a House subcommittee voted to block the Federal Communications Commission's rule allowing cross-media ownership in the country's 20 largest media markets. Until the FCC's rushed and corporate-backed “rule making” last year, single companies had been barred for 30 years from owning both a newspaper and a radio or TV station in the same market,

In 1983, 50 corporations controlled the vast majority of all news media in the U.S. In 2004, Ben Bagdikian's book, The New Media Monopoly , shows that only 5 huge corporations -- Time Warner, Disney, Murdoch's News Corporation, Bertelsmann of Germany, and Viacom (formerly CBS) -- now control most of the media industry in the U.S. General Electric's NBC is a close sixth. As to newspaper cross-ownership in the top markets, the loosened FCC rule allowing ownership affected several news organizations such as Murdoch’s News Corp., Gannett Co., and Media General Inc. all of which own several local newspapers and broadcast stations.

The House action was part of a spending bill that funds the FCC and would deny the agency any funding to implement the rule. In may the Senate passed a bill to rescind the FCC rule. The full House committee is scheduled to vote on the spending bill next week, but the final measure likely will be wrapped into a large year-end spending bill covering virtually all federal agencies. At any point in the process, lawmakers could remove the FCC provision.