US & International Media Concentration
Depending on your point of view, the new broadcast station ownership rules issued Nov. 16, 2017 by the Federal Communications Commission will either increase market diversity by ridding us of antiquated rules, or, it will decrease diversity by helping large media companies grow even larger.
The new rules are part of a standard four-year review of broadcast ownership rules. They follow a pattern of deregulation since the Reagan era.
FCC Commissioner Migdon L. Clyburn said that it was difficult to know where to start with the problems in the new rules: “Do I start by describing why the wholesale elimination of key media ownership rules will harm localism, diversity, and competition? Do I focus on the number of loopholes this Commission blesses through this Order? Or do I highlight how the FCC majority has chosen to take some of the same facts used by this Commission just over a year ago to reach the exact opposite conclusions?”
But FCC Chairman Ajit Pai said: “It’s a simple proposition: the media ownership regulations of 2017 should match the media marketplace of 2017.”
Most controversial, the new FCC rules would eliminate theNewspaper/Broadcast Cross-Ownership Rule, which is when one company owns the newspaper and television station(s) in the same town, thereby diminishing the diversity of perspectives in the news.
The new rules also eliminate the “Eight Voices” test, in which the same owners cannot own two television stations in any city with less than eight stations operating.
