August 5, 1999

In the Matters of: Review of the Commission's Regulations Governing Television Broadcasting (MM Docket No. 91-221), Television Satellite Stations Review of Policy and Rules (MM Docket No. 87-8), Broadcast Television National Ownership Rules (MM Docket No. 96-222), Review of the Commission's Regulations Governing Attribution of Broadcast and Cable/MDS Interests (MM Docket No. 94-150), Review of the Commission's Regulations and Policies Affecting Investment in the Broadcast Industry (MM Docket No. 92-51), and Reexamination of the Commission's Cross-Interest Policy (MM Docket No. 87-154).

I had two goals for these proceedings: (1) to eliminate the fictions and subterfuges that have plagued our broadcast ownership rules; and (2) to strike the appropriate balance between the potential public interest benefits and the potential harms of increased consolidation. For the most part, as discussed below, I believe we have hit the mark.

Eliminating Fictions

One of the disturbing characteristics of our broadcast ownership rules was the gap between the rules as they were written and the rules as they were enforced. For instance, duopolies were strictly prohibited under the rules, but station owners were able to use the LMA artifice to control the programming decisions of a second station in the market without that station being attributable. Similarly, our one-to-a-market rule was effectively eviscerated by a Commission waiver process that became, in practice, a rubber stamp.

Today's decisions largely put an end to these and other fictions. LMAs are now attributable. The one-to-a-market waiver process will be tightened. Debt is now recognized as a factor that can bestow influence. Eliminating these fictions often has meant relaxing the underlying substantive rule involved. But I would much rather relax the underlying rule to reflect reality than to keep a rule on the books that is meaningless. Today's decisions should not only promote respect for the Commission's rules and processes, but should also help level the playing field between Washington insiders and those outside the beltway who still believe that our rules mean what they say.

As for LMAs in particular, although the subterfuge is over and they are now attributable, this Order does not outlaw them. Nevertheless, I hope and expect that there will be few, if any, new LMAs, since their regulatory raison d'etre has been eliminated and the duopoly rule has been relaxed. I do not believe it is appropriate for control of a station's programming to be divorced from control of a station's license. The licensee is the one responsible for programming its station to serve the local community; that responsibility should not be delegated to a third party. The sharp drop in new radio LMAs after the Commission found them attributable gives me every reason to expect that television LMAs will suffer the same fate. If this proves incorrect, I would revisit the LMA issue.

One rule change that is expessly intended to bring our rules in line with reality is the narrowing of the duopoly rule to permit common ownership of television stations in different DMAs, regardless of contour overlap. According to the Order, DMAs "are a better measure of actual television viewing patterns" than a signal contour test, "and thus serve as a good measure of the economic marketplace in which broadcasters, program suppliers and advertisers buy and sell their services and products." I could not agree more. Indeed, I have made this very point on several occasions in the context of our local radio ownership rules, which still rely exclusively on signal contours to define the relevant "market." I look forward to changing our radio ownership rules to reflect reality as we have done for our television rules.

Unfortunately, there is one fiction that the Commission chose to retain: the single majority shareholder rule. Under this rule, as long as a single shareholder owns more than 50% of a licensee's voting stock, no other interests are attributable. That means, for example, that someone could own 49.9% of the voting stock, own the studio and transmission facilities, and provide all of the station's debt, and still be deemed unable to exert significant influence over that station's decision-making. I realize that the scope of the single majority shareholder rule has been narrowed somewhat by the adoption of the equity/debt plus rule, but the EDP rule only applies to programming suppliers and same-market media entities. The attribution rules, however, should identify any relationship that permits an entity to exert significant influence over another. If, for policy reasons, we wish to permit certain entities to obtain ownership interests notwithstanding their ability to influence the licensee, we should do so directly and not through the fiction of claiming that such influence does not exist. I therefore dissent from that part of the Attribution Report and Order.

Finding the Public Interest

This has been a difficult decision to reach. Making decisions about diversity is never easy. In the end, I did not agree to relax our broadcast ownership rules because I believe we have "enough" diversity or because the growth in new media outlets means that diversity is no longer a concern, but because I believe that the diversity benefits of the relaxed ownership rules we adopt today outweigh the potential harms. Let me explain this apparent paradox.

For those of us who care about diversity, the easy answer would have been to insist on a maximum number of independent owners -- the Commission's traditional proxy for maximizing the number of different "voices" in a community. And generally, I still believe that this proxy is a good one. Those television licensees who can stand alone and provide a real local voice should be required to do so. As the Order notes, it is at the local level that our diversity concerns are most acute. But I became convinced through the course of this proceeding that separate ownership -- at least in the full-power television context -- does not necessarily translate into a meaningful local "voice." That is, if a licensee's low market share does not give it the resources to originate any local programming, such as news or public affairs, the community may have an additional owner but no meaningful additional voice.

In those cases in which a licensee is unlikely to contribute to local diversity, I believe the public interest may be better served by permitting that station to combine with a stronger station in the market. With the efficiencies of consolidation, for instance, the weaker station may be able to change from running only infomercials and reruns, or simply passing through a satellite-delivered signal, to a station that is able to provide local news. Or maybe the stronger station will use the weaker station as some broadcast networks use their cable channels -- as a forum for more in-depth news pieces or to stay with breaking stories rather than returning to the network feed. Either way, it is not clear to me that the public is better off with a separate owner with no local content than with a duopoly that permits one owner to provide more and better local content.

But make no mistake: this is not an exact science. We could have drawn the line in a different place, and there may be situations in which a viable local voice is removed from the marketplace under the new rules. Overall, however, I believe that we have struck the appropriate balance and that the new rules will do more good than ill for meaningful local diversity and for serving the public interest.