Broadcasters Wary of an Obama FCC
By Kim McAvoy
Yesterday’s sweeping Democratic victory likely means more trouble for TV broadcasters in Washington, according to the industry’s lawyers and lobbyists and communications policy mavens.
With Barack Obama in the White House and a larger Democratic majority on Capitol Hill, industry reps fear Congress and a reconstituted FCC may push for local programming quotas, more children’s programming requirements, restrictions on product placements and mandates for free air time for candidates.
The Democrats have historically been less enthusiastic about policing broadcast indecency, they point out, but many would like nothing better than to bring back the fairness doctrine to muzzle their many right-wing critics on radio.
And broadcasters can forget about looser ownership restrictions, they say. The challenge will be to keep the Democrats from tightening them to encourage more diversity in media ownership, one of their oft-stated policy goals.
“It’s not going to be pretty,” says one long-time broadcast lobbyist.
“There is very legitimate reason to worry about an Obama FCC and what it means for the future of broadcast and all media,” says Adam Thierer, a senior fellow at the Progress and Freedom Foundation, a conservative think tank.
“Specifically, what I fear is not the same thing that some others fear like a revival of the fairness doctrine. What I fear is a lot of backdoor regulation through proceedings like localism or the revival of the personal attack rule or community advisory boards for broadcasters.”
The big change will be at the FCC.
The Democrat minority at the five-person agency will become a majority next January when Republican Chairman Kevin Martin resigns and fellow Republican Commissioner Deborah Tate steps down as her term expires.
Obama will tap one of the sitting Democratic commissioners, Michael Copps or Jonathan Adelstein, to run the agency until the new president gets around to nominating (and the Senate gets around to confirming) a new permanent chairman — a process that could take several months.
Neither Copps nor Adelstein is good news for broadcasters, the lobbyists say.
Both have vigorously opposed all efforts to loosen broadcast ownership rules and have championed new public service programming obligations for broadcasters.
They contend that media consolidation is limiting the diversity of voices in media and they believe the American public is getting less than it should from broadcasters in exchange for the valuable spectrum.
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