Court rejects FCC ownership rules in historic victory!

[auryn]

On June 24, 2004, a federal appeals court overturned the FCC's dramatic loosening of media ownership rules, handing the public a historic victory. The court's ruling sends the FCC’s controversial rules – which relaxed the limits on newspaper, TV, and radio ownership – back to the drawing board.

The decision is a tremendous victory for media diversity, localism, and for the general public, including the millions of citizens who have been writing, e-mailing and calling the FCC and Congress to protest the FCC's caving in to Big Media.

The most significant aspects of the court ruling:

* The court rejected the FCC's rule changes which allowed for "cross-ownership" of newspapers and broadcast stations, and the concentration of broadcast ownership, in local markets. Together, these rules would have allowed one company to own three TV stations, 8 radio stations, and the monopoly newspaper in a single market.

* The court took aim at the FCC's faulty methodology, including the so-called "diversity index", used by the agency to measure the influence of different kinds of media on local communities.

* Critically, the court also rejected the FCC's claim that ownership limits should be removed unless evidence could be shown to warrant their staying in place. The court instead placed the burden of proof on the FCC, stating that unless sufficient evidence can be shown to warrant their removal, media ownership limits should be kept in place.

[Only registered and activated users can see links. Either login above or Register Now]

[crazytimes]

This is good news.

I have a question though. When I lived in Chicago I learned that Tribune company owns the Chicago Tribune Newspaper, WGN-TV, WGN Radio (and the Chicago Cubs, but who cares about them!). Isn't this breaking the law?

[CagedTroll]

Tribune (and any other company) is within limits, with just those three in just Chicago. They used to have KTLA television where I live (not sure about now), and that was still legal. But if they owned all of the above, plus two more television stations in Los Angeles (say, for example, channels 13 and 9) then they'd be in violation. Or if they owned three more stations in Chicago. So it's not just the numbers, it's the location. I think I get Fox's version of the news on two broadcast signals right now (channels 9 and 11), plus the cable station, so one more would put them in what's still a grey area of law.

SIDENOTE: Something I just typed would be wrong, except WGN comes in on channel 25 here. Can't figure out exactly what might be wrong, because I'm seeing numbers and getting a headache... But I know the fact that I sometimes watch the Chicago evening news explains everything... <shrug>