FCC backs media ownership rules
Cable firm limits are also approved
WASHINGTON - The Federal Communications Commission approved rules yesterday that allow publishers to own both newspapers and broadcast stations in the biggest US cities and that limit growth for cable companies.
Chairman Kevin Martin and the other two Republicans on the five-member panel backed the loosened rules for newspaper owners, which modify a ban adopted in 1975. Martin joined the agency's two Democrats in approving the cable limit.
Publishers Tribune Co. and News Corp. had said the ownership proposal didn't go far enough, while consumer groups said it threatened diversity in local media. The FCC disregarded 25 US senators who vowed in a letter released Monday to block the decision. They said more time is needed to review a policy that has "a substantial impact on the American people."
T. Barton Carter, a professor of communication and law at Boston University, said yesterday's ruling will not have any impact on the Boston market in the short term because the decision is likely to be challenged by public interest groups and newspaper associations.
Moreover, the ruling includes a provision that television stations involved in any cross-ownership deal may not be among the top four in the market.
That would probably prevent Rupert Murdoch, owner of News Corp., from reclaiming the Boston Herald. Murdoch was forced to sell the Herald in 1994 so that its subsidiary Fox Television Network could purchase the local Fox affiliate WFXT, Channel 25.
Also, the media landscape has been transformed so much in recent years that deals which seemed possible two years ago would now be unlikely to occur, said Mark Jurkowitz, associate director of the Project for Excellence in Journalism in Washington.
The FCC also approved in a 3-to-2 vote Martin's plan to allow cable companies to serve no more than 30 percent of the US market, restoring a cap set aside by a federal court in 2001. Republican Commissioner Robert McDowell said the courts would again reject the limit.
Comcast Corp., the largest US cable service, opposed the cap, saying cable providers' market share has eroded because of competition from AT&T and Verizon Communications. Comcast says it controls about 27 percent of the US market; its critics say nearly 30 percent. 