FREEBIRD

[j.c.]

Why the FCC needs to spend more money to carry out it's decision? Specifically... I wouldn't know... but I would think they would need money just to operate...
You are allowed to paste the whole article on this board...
(bolded are my emphasis)

House Votes to Prevent Change in Media Rule
By Christopher Stern and Jonathan Krim
Washington Post Staff Writers
Thursday, July 24, 2003; Page A01

The House voted yesterday to block the Federal Communications Commission from imposing rules that would allow the nation's biggest broadcasting companies to buy more television stations, setting up a potential showdown with the White House.

A bipartisan coalition pushed through the measure by attaching it to an appropriations bill to fund the Commerce, State and Justice departments and several agencies, including the FCC. The spending bill was approved by a vote of 400 to 21, despite a veto threat from the Bush administration and objections from the Republican House leadership.

The legislation would prohibit the FCC from spending any money to carry out its decision last month to allow individual companies to own television stations that reach as much as 45 percent of the national audience. The House measure would keep the limit at 35 percent.

If the House language becomes law, it could have significant repercussions for the corporate parents of the CBS and Fox broadcast networks, which own stations that reach more than 35 percent of the country. Those companies could be forced to sell stations in some of the nation's largest and most lucrative markets. NBC owns stations that reach 34 percent of the country. ABC, which has stations that reach 24 percent of the national audience, has room to grow under a 35 percent ownership cap.

The major networks say they need revenue from the cash-rich stations to pay for expensive programming.

Several industry lobbyists said yesterday that they expect the Senate to take a similar approach to the House in amending an appropriations bill to roll back the ownership cap. The lobbyists said they would work to strip the language from the legislation when conferees sit down to reconcile differences between the two bills.

"The backdoor efforts by the (House) Appropriations Committee to cut off funds to the FCC needed to implement these rules is very disappointing to us." said B. Robert Okun, NBC's chief Washington lobbyist.

The House vote would stop the FCC from spending money on its new rule for only one fiscal year. The support the measure attracted may embolden critics of the 45 percent ownership cap to seek a permanent change to the rule.

Opponents of the FCC's action included conservative and liberal public interest groups worried that further consolidation among media companies would lead to more-homogenized programming and make it harder for unpopular viewpoints to be heard. Many also worried that stations would lose their local identities as they became part of huge media companies.

As the House considered the spending bill yesterday, the Senate Commerce Committee held a hearing on the effect the FCC's rule would have on local ownership of television stations. L. Brent Bozell III, president of the Parents Television Council, a conservative group that opposes the FCC's action, testified that his members are overwhelmed by the "raw sewage, ultra-violence, graphic sex and raunchy language that is flooding into our living rooms night and day by giant media corporations with no concern whatsoever for community standards."

Yesterday's vote was a setback for FCC Chairman Michael K. Powell. He has argued that the media business has gone through a dramatic transformation in the past 10 years, making it possible for the agency to relax its limits on corporate ownership.

"Our Democracy is strong," Powell said in a prepared statement. "It would be irresponsible to ignore the diversity of viewpoints provided by cable, satellite and the Internet."

Small and medium-size broadcasting companies opposed the FCC's decision to allow the major networks to own more stations. They claim that the networks are able to force them to carry shows they don't want at the expense of local and regional programming.

(Alan Frank, chief executive of The Washington Post Co.'s television unit, Post-Newsweek Stations Inc., is chairman of an alliance of 600 television station owners who lobbied against raising the cap.)

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House Votes to Prevent Change in Media Rule

If anything, the Senate is more antagonistic than the House to the FCC's deregulatory approach.

Senate Commerce Committee Chairman John McCain (R-Ariz.) supports legislation that would force some of the largest radio companies to sell some of their stations. Other lawmakers want to reverse an FCC decision to allow one company to own newspapers and television stations in the same market.

Sen. Byron L. Dorgan (D-N.D.) is pushing a rarely used legislative device known as a "resolution of disapproval," which would effectively vacate the entire FCC decision. The resolution is awaiting a vote in the Senate. To go into effect, it would have to be approved by the House and signed by the president.

Many lawmakers and lobbyists expect the Senate's best chance to undo the FCC's action would be to follow the House's lead.

Senate Appropriations Committee Chairman Ted Stevens (R-Alaska) declined to comment yesterday on his plans for the bill. Other prominent Republicans, such as Trent Lott (R-Miss.) and Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-Tex.), have joined Democrats in calling for a wholesale reversal of the FCC's ownership rules.

Sen. Ernest F. Hollings (D-S.C.), a member of the Appropriations Committee, said it is almost inevitable that Congress will send legislation to the White House that rolls back at least some of the FCC's decision on media ownership. "It's got momentum in my opinion," Hollings said in an interview.

Staff writer Frank Ahrens in Hollywood contributed to this report.