[opendtv] News: BROADCASTERS READY TO DEAL IN WASHINGTON
- From: Craig Birkmaier <craig@xxxxxxxxx>
- To: OpenDTV Mail List <opendtv@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Wed, 14 Mar 2007 10:11:55 -0500
http://www.tvnewsday.com/articles/2007/03/14/daily.3/
TVNEWSDAY Focus on Washington
BROADCASTERS READY TO DEAL IN WASHINGTON
TVNEWSDAY, Mar. 14, 9:03 AM ET
To win relief on crossownership rules, Gannett and Media General are
promising policymakers more public interest programming. Others are
ready to trade for multicast must-carry rights.
By Kim McAvoy
With the Democrats running Congress again, broadcasters are ready to
deal-at least some are.
Story continues after the ad
They say they will accept new public interest programming obligations
in exchange for regulatory relief-or help.
Leading the would-be dealmakers: Gannett and Media General,
multimedia companies with substantial newspaper and TV station
interests.
According to several Washington sources, the two companies are
quietly floating a proposal under which the FCC would grant waivers
of the newspaper-broadcast crossownership rule if the stations
involved in the crossownership situations accept increased public
interest obligations.
Details of the proposal are sketchy. But it is believed that the
companies have suggested that their stations would air at least five
hours of local news a week and hold public forums every quarter.
The sources say that representatives of Gannett, General Counsel Kurt
Wimmer and attorney Gerry Waldron, have already bounced the idea off
of FCC Chairman Kevin Martin and the commission's two Democratic
commissioners, Michael Copps and Jonathan Adelstein.
Waldron, an attorney at Covington & Burling, is a former aide to
House Telecommunications Subcommittee Chairman Edward Markey
(D-Mass.).
Niether Wimmer nor Waldron could be reached for comment before deadline.
According to FCC records, Media General General Counsel George
Mahoney met with Copps and Adelstein last week, but there is no word
about the subject of the meeting.
Groups opposed to media consolidation don't like the idea of quid pro
quo. "No increased public interest obligations are going to override
the concern we have about diversity," says Derek Turner, research
director for Free Press.
"Whatever proposal they'll float around, I don't think it will really
get a lot of traction with the Democrats at the FCC, and not with the
public interest community and, I doubt, with people up on the Hill."
However, many broadcasters believe the key House lawmakers-Energy and
Commerce Committee Chairman John Dingell (D-Mich.) and Markey-are
inclined to deal.
Indeed, Markey had at one time considered the idea of giving
broadcasters a choice to accept more public interest obligations in
exchange for must-carry rights for their digital channels.
But the proposal languished for a number of reasons. The
Republican-controlled Congress was dead set against any type of
multicast must carry.
Plus, reaching a consensus on what those new public interest
obligations would be is not a simple task. Markey's demands would not
be meager.
Other broadcasters say they are willing to deal, not for regulatory
relief, but for regulatory help.
"We're a company that is very happy to discuss additional public
service requirements with these digital channels in exchange for
multicast carriage," Dispatch Broadcast Group President and CEO
Michael Fiorile said in an interview with TVNEWSDAY last week.
"We would commit to additional public service in exchange for
multicast carriage. Broadcasters that do not want to do any public
service can opt not to have the additional channels carried," Fiorile
added.
Fiorile, who is a member of the NAB board, says others broadcasters
would go along with such a deal.
In an interview that will appear in TVNEWSDAY next Tuesday, LIN TV
CEO Vince Sadusky endorses Fiorile's idea. "Absolutely, sure," he
says. "It's fine because the reality is we're already set up to do
it. We've got a set in most of our newsrooms where we do community
forums and interviews. This kind of thing is in our DNA."
Still, selling the concept to other broadcasters may also prove
challenging. As one skeptical source put it: "If you want the relief,
you have to let the FCC tell you how to program your station."
And, again, the public interest community isn't likely to embrace the
"opt in-opt out" approach to broadcast regulation eagerly.
"We regard that as buying your way out of the draft," says Media
Access President Andy Schwartzman. "Our point is that every
broadcaster has a public interest obligation," he adds. It's not
something to be traded or waived."
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