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Fcc media rule blocked in house { July 24 2003 } Original Source Link: (May no longer be active)
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July 24, 2003
F.C.C. Media Rule Blocked in House in a 400-to-21 Vote
By STEPHEN LABATON
WASHINGTON, July 23 — The House of Representatives overwhelmingly passed legislation today to block a new rule supported by the Bush administration that would permit the nation's largest television networks to grow bigger by owning more stations.
The vote, which was 400 to 21, sets the stage for a rare confrontation between the Republican-controlled Congress and the White House, because there is strong support in the Senate for similar measures, which seek to roll back last month's decision by the Federal Communications Commission to raise the limit on the number of television stations a network can own. The F.C.C. has ruled that a single company can own television stations reaching 45 percent of the nation's households, but the House measure would return the ownership cap to 35 percent.
Only a few weeks ago, support for the F.C.C.'s move by House Republican leaders had been expected to counter the Senate uprising. But many House members from both parties have evidently taken note of the vocal resistance to the F.C.C. action by many members of the public and a broad spectrum of conservative and liberal lobbying groups — from the National Rifle Association to the National Organization for Women.
Today's House rebuke of the F.C.C. was embedded in a spending bill. The White House, which has threatened to veto the bill if the network provision remains in it, today sought to play down the lopsided size of the vote. Claire Buchan, a White House spokeswoman, said that presidential advisers had recommended approval of the legislation so that it could proceed to a House-Senate conference committee where the network ownership provision might be stripped out.
If, as is becoming more likely, the provision survives in final legislation, President Bush will face a difficult political predicament. He could carry out his veto threat and alienate some of his traditional constituents, which include several conservative organizations opposed to a number of new rules adopted by the F.C.C. Or, he could sign the legislation, abandon the networks and undercut his own advisers who have recommended that he reject the legislation.
A number of Republicans said privately today that they were surprised that the president would be willing to expend significant political capital over the issue; others said the White House felt compelled to defend the decisions of a regulatory agency whose leaders it had appointed.
Judging political sentiment from today's vote, a veto could be easily overridden in the House, and perhaps in the Senate, where there is also broad support for repealing some of the F.C.C.'s new media rules.
Five weeks ago, the Senate Commerce Committee adopted a provision similar to the one the House passed today. The Senate committee passed the provision by voice vote after a wide majority of Democrats and Republicans on the committee expressed support for it.
At the time of that vote, network executives and top aides to Michael K. Powell, the F.C.C. chairman and architect of the new rules, predicted that the effort to overturn the rules would die in the House because its leadership had supported them. The vote, a clear repudiation of Mr. Powell, suggested that he miscalculated the widespread opposition to the new rules.
One of the main sponsors of the Senate provision, Senator Ted Stevens, Republican of Alaska, is the chairman of the Senate Appropriations Committee, and other Senate supporters of reversing the rules include Trent Lott, Republican of Mississippi, and Ernest F. Hollings of South Carolina, the ranking Democrat on both the Senate Commerce Committee and the Appropriations subcommittee that oversees the F.C.C.'s budget. Senate officials said they expected that a measure to roll back the F.C.C.'s decision would reach the floor soon after the Senate returned from its summer recess in September.
Supporters of the effort to overrule the F.C.C. said that today's action demonstrated that the leadership in the House, as well as the White House, had lost control over the legislation.
"The House has now repudiated the F.C.C.'s attempted giveaway of the public airways to national media giants based in New York and L.A.," said Representative David R. Obey of Wisconsin, the ranking Democrat on the House Appropriations Committee and author of the network ownership provision in the bill. "I hope the administration is listening and will fix its flawed policy, so citizens can get accurate, free-flowing information — the lifeblood of democracy."
Administration officials appeared committed to the new rules and to opposing Congressional attempts to repeal them.
After the vote, Stephen Friedman, the president's top economic adviser, dismissed the assertion by the legislation's backers that further media consolidation would reduce the diversity of voices on the airwaves. He said that if all four networks reached 45 percent of the nation's homes, that would demonstrate that there is competition in the media market.
Asked in a brief telephone interview how the administration might be able to turn the tide in Congress, he said, "I think we try to educate the members and make the case."
He also conceded that he was not a media specialist and that he was only beginning to understand the political forces at play. "The politics I'm still getting an education on," he said.
A number of Democratic presidential contenders, meanwhile, have criticized the rules and the consolidation in the media industry. They include Howard Dean, the former Vermont governor; Senator John Edwards; Senator John Kerry; and Representative Dennis J. Kucinich.
But traditional allies of the administration, most notably a coalition of religious and conservative groups, have also joined liberal organizations in attacking the new rules. The religious and conservative organizations have said they fear the growth of the media may reduce their access to the airwaves. They also blame the networks for programming that they say is increasingly violent and indecent. The coalition includes the Parents Television Council, the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, Consumers Union, the Writers Guild of America and the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights.
The concern over the growth of media conglomerates transcends traditional party lines in part because of the personal experiences of many politicians. Congressional aides say lawmakers fear that they could suffer political problems if there are too few media outlets in their home districts, making it more difficult for them to convey their messages to their constituents and increasing the influence of the remaining newspapers and stations.
Mr. Powell and the networks have responded with the assertion that without some regulatory relief for the networks, free over-the-air television could be eliminated. The networks say that they need to find new ways to raise revenues to support expensive programming like the Olympic Games and the Super Bowl, and that owning more stations will give them the money to do so.
Mr. Powell, who had been largely silent during the Congressional debate, today issued a statement defending the F.C.C.'s rules.
"Our democracy is strong," he said, saying that critics have overlooked the various ways the public receives information besides broadcast television. "It would be irresponsible to ignore the diversity of viewpoints provided by cable, satellite and the Internet."
Network executives agreed. They have been unhappy that the commission under Mr. Powell did not relax the rules even further and have suggested that they may bring a lawsuit to challenge even the new rules.
"NBC was disappointed, and today's action by the House was a huge step backwards in giving broadcasters the regulatory relief needed to compete with cable," Shannon Jacobs, an NBC spokeswoman, said.
There are also signs that investors are nervous about the possible reimposition of the old rules. Stock prices of several of the parent companies of the networks — General Electric, Owner of NBC; Viacom, owner of CBS; and the News Corporation, which owns Fox — have declined slightly from their highs in early-to-mid June, around time of the approval of the new regulations. The broader market indexes, including media stocks more generally, continued to rise through mid-July. The shares of the companies were little changed today.
The networks had sought the elimination of the cap entirely, or at least raising it well above 45 percent. Two of the networks, CBS and Fox, are already slightly over the 35 percent limit and had been allowed to do on a temporary basis, pending the rule change.
The F.C.C.'s rule change had touched off deep divisions within the broadcasting industry.
The networks' local affiliate stations and smaller owners of broadcast stations had sought to keep the cap at 35 percent, saying they feared that any further growth in the networks' power would be detrimental to viewers in a variety of ways: homogenizing entertainment, discouraging local news coverage in favor of national broadcasts, and reducing the commercial leverage of the local stations to offer independent programming.
The networks' stakes in the fight was evident this week as their lobbyists desperately attempted to defeat the House measure. Congressional aides said that lobbyists for the News Corporation helped to circulate a one-sentence petition, endorsed by House leaders, saying that the undersigned members would vote to sustain a presidential veto.
Attached to the memo, the aides said, was a set of policy "talking points" on the merits of the new rule that had been prepared by lobbyists from CBS's owner, Viacom, and the Walt Disney Company, parent of ABC.
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