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American Morning

FCC Considering Changing the Rules

Aired June 02, 2003 - 09:35   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.


DARYN KAGAN, CNN ANCHOR: The Federal Communications Commission today is expected to approve sweeping new rules that would relax limits on media ownership. The new rules would allow companies to own more television stations, permit ownership of newspapers and television stations in the same market, and would let companies own more than one station in a particular market. Now, critics are saying that changes would put too many stations in the hands of too few broadcasters.
Here to break it down, explain what it means to you and what you see at home, our senior analyst, Jeff Greenfield -- Jeff, good morning.

JEFF GREENFIELD, CNN SR. ANALYST: Good morning.

KAGAN: This one has been in the works for quite a while. This is not an overnight thing?

GREENFIELD: The whole move for deregulation goes back as far as the 1970s, when Jimmy Carter's FCC chairman, looking at radio, began arguing that the changing nature of electronic media made deregulation possible. And then, with cable and then satellite, the whole idea of dozens and hundreds of channels as opposed to the sharply limited over the air number of stations that some of us grew up with meant, in their view, that these rules of ownership were getting obsolete.

And it is still the argument, basically, of the deregulators today. They argue that with Internet, with streaming video, with cable and satellite, there are plenty of diverse voices out there.

The other side of the argument is that for all of us, you are talking about a handful of companies that are getting progressively bigger and dominant in platform after platform, across print, TV, cable, satellite, cable networks, movie studios.

This company, AOL Time Warner, which owns "TIME" magazine, you may have heard of it, six networks. Disney, which owns ABC, which owns ESPN. Rupert Murdoch's News Corp. that owns newspapers and satellites, Viacom owns CBS and it owns Paramount Studios, NBC is owned by a tiny little start-up called General Electric, and there is a concern about concentration of power.

KAGAN: And basically, you are having the same people doing the production as are doing the distribution.

GREENFIELD: And that has been another big change. It used to be that television networks couldn't produce the programs they put on the air. Now, that rule is relaxed, and what do you know? About half or more of the stuff on network TV is owned in whole or in part by the same network companies.

KAGAN: Explain to us how this vote is going to work. Politics certainly has to play a role.

GREENFIELD: Well, the politics part is interesting. There is a company called -- an organization, rather -- calmed MoveOn.org. It is a liberal organization, essentially, and they've made Rupert Murdoch their target in TV ads, a very prominent conservative media mogul. You also have the former FCC chairman, Reed Hunt, who says this is part of the attempt on the right to gain dominance over the media. But as we've said here and you've heard, this opposition also includes the Family Research Council, a conservative Washington-based group, the National Rifle Association, conservative columnist Bill Safire.

The Family Research Council seems to worry that the liberal, relativist, sexually permissive media they don't like will grow in dominance. But I think -- the politics is pretty simple. Three Republicans on the FCC, two Democrats, and the expectation is, maybe by the time this broadcast is over, it will be a 3-2 vote to let these rules be relaxed.

The other question that's less political is localism, and I think this is a key one. The worry that absentee owners, the kind -- with, like, Clear Channel company, they own 1,200 radio stations, and they often program a local market from hundreds of miles away, and the worry there is that the more you have that kind of ownership, the less you're going to serve local communities. Like when a tornado hits, sometimes the radio stations don't even know about it because they're hundreds of miles away.

KAGAN: Or just even bringing up local issues that are important to the local population. I am just wondering, have you found it fascinating -- you brought up some media moguls, I am thinking (ph) Rupert Murdoch. But you saw Ted Turner come out against this, Barry Diller. These are both men who have made billions, billions of dollars by benefiting from large media, and yet they are coming out and going, Hold on, this is not a good idea.

GREENFIELD: Well, of course, Ted Turner has many fewer billions thanks to what has happened to AOL Time Warner stock. He said that if these rules was been in effect when he started CNN, CNN wouldn't have been started, which is an interesting take from a guy, who did, as you point out, he has still got -- we are not going to do a telethon for Ted Turner.

KAGAN: He's doing OK.

GREENFIELD: But I think -- people you're talking about, Diller and Turner, are kind of entrepreneurial types. Turner started with almost nothing, a little UHF station in Atlanta and a bankrupt billboard company. And there really is -- it really is interesting to watch the number of people who are not politically liberal or left -- and Bill Safire clearly is an ardent conservative -- saying, You know what, conservatives don't like bigness whether it's in government or in private companies.

And there is this -- the FCC has been deluged with letters and phone calls, and e-mails objecting to this. The media have been, except for Bill Moyers' "Now" program on PBS, almost absent to the last week or two in covering this area, and some think it may be because we're the people who will -- or our stockholders, will benefit from it.

KAGAN: Very interesting.

GREENFIELD: Yes.

KAGAN: As we said, the meeting's getting under way. We'll be tracking it throughout the day. Jeff, thank you so much.

TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com






Aired June 2, 2003 - 09:35   ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
DARYN KAGAN, CNN ANCHOR: The Federal Communications Commission today is expected to approve sweeping new rules that would relax limits on media ownership. The new rules would allow companies to own more television stations, permit ownership of newspapers and television stations in the same market, and would let companies own more than one station in a particular market. Now, critics are saying that changes would put too many stations in the hands of too few broadcasters.
Here to break it down, explain what it means to you and what you see at home, our senior analyst, Jeff Greenfield -- Jeff, good morning.

JEFF GREENFIELD, CNN SR. ANALYST: Good morning.

KAGAN: This one has been in the works for quite a while. This is not an overnight thing?

GREENFIELD: The whole move for deregulation goes back as far as the 1970s, when Jimmy Carter's FCC chairman, looking at radio, began arguing that the changing nature of electronic media made deregulation possible. And then, with cable and then satellite, the whole idea of dozens and hundreds of channels as opposed to the sharply limited over the air number of stations that some of us grew up with meant, in their view, that these rules of ownership were getting obsolete.

And it is still the argument, basically, of the deregulators today. They argue that with Internet, with streaming video, with cable and satellite, there are plenty of diverse voices out there.

The other side of the argument is that for all of us, you are talking about a handful of companies that are getting progressively bigger and dominant in platform after platform, across print, TV, cable, satellite, cable networks, movie studios.

This company, AOL Time Warner, which owns "TIME" magazine, you may have heard of it, six networks. Disney, which owns ABC, which owns ESPN. Rupert Murdoch's News Corp. that owns newspapers and satellites, Viacom owns CBS and it owns Paramount Studios, NBC is owned by a tiny little start-up called General Electric, and there is a concern about concentration of power.

KAGAN: And basically, you are having the same people doing the production as are doing the distribution.

GREENFIELD: And that has been another big change. It used to be that television networks couldn't produce the programs they put on the air. Now, that rule is relaxed, and what do you know? About half or more of the stuff on network TV is owned in whole or in part by the same network companies.

KAGAN: Explain to us how this vote is going to work. Politics certainly has to play a role.

GREENFIELD: Well, the politics part is interesting. There is a company called -- an organization, rather -- calmed MoveOn.org. It is a liberal organization, essentially, and they've made Rupert Murdoch their target in TV ads, a very prominent conservative media mogul. You also have the former FCC chairman, Reed Hunt, who says this is part of the attempt on the right to gain dominance over the media. But as we've said here and you've heard, this opposition also includes the Family Research Council, a conservative Washington-based group, the National Rifle Association, conservative columnist Bill Safire.

The Family Research Council seems to worry that the liberal, relativist, sexually permissive media they don't like will grow in dominance. But I think -- the politics is pretty simple. Three Republicans on the FCC, two Democrats, and the expectation is, maybe by the time this broadcast is over, it will be a 3-2 vote to let these rules be relaxed.

The other question that's less political is localism, and I think this is a key one. The worry that absentee owners, the kind -- with, like, Clear Channel company, they own 1,200 radio stations, and they often program a local market from hundreds of miles away, and the worry there is that the more you have that kind of ownership, the less you're going to serve local communities. Like when a tornado hits, sometimes the radio stations don't even know about it because they're hundreds of miles away.

KAGAN: Or just even bringing up local issues that are important to the local population. I am just wondering, have you found it fascinating -- you brought up some media moguls, I am thinking (ph) Rupert Murdoch. But you saw Ted Turner come out against this, Barry Diller. These are both men who have made billions, billions of dollars by benefiting from large media, and yet they are coming out and going, Hold on, this is not a good idea.

GREENFIELD: Well, of course, Ted Turner has many fewer billions thanks to what has happened to AOL Time Warner stock. He said that if these rules was been in effect when he started CNN, CNN wouldn't have been started, which is an interesting take from a guy, who did, as you point out, he has still got -- we are not going to do a telethon for Ted Turner.

KAGAN: He's doing OK.

GREENFIELD: But I think -- people you're talking about, Diller and Turner, are kind of entrepreneurial types. Turner started with almost nothing, a little UHF station in Atlanta and a bankrupt billboard company. And there really is -- it really is interesting to watch the number of people who are not politically liberal or left -- and Bill Safire clearly is an ardent conservative -- saying, You know what, conservatives don't like bigness whether it's in government or in private companies.

And there is this -- the FCC has been deluged with letters and phone calls, and e-mails objecting to this. The media have been, except for Bill Moyers' "Now" program on PBS, almost absent to the last week or two in covering this area, and some think it may be because we're the people who will -- or our stockholders, will benefit from it.

KAGAN: Very interesting.

GREENFIELD: Yes.

KAGAN: As we said, the meeting's getting under way. We'll be tracking it throughout the day. Jeff, thank you so much.

TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com