The public forum on broadcast ownership in Tampa followed the script of the three prior official forums and the many non-FCC hoc forums which have been attended by the two Democratic commissioners. The 250-300 citizens who showed up, for the most part, were not there to praise big media conglomerates and local consolidation. The five commissioners are getting to the point where they have stump speeches for such events (click through below to see their opening remarks). Chairman Kevin Martin (R) intoned the magic words "competition, diversity and localism" before suggesting that many of the current rules are creaky with age; Michael Copps (D) and Jonathan Adelstein (D) rallied the protesters in the audience; and Deborah Taylor Tate and Robert McDowell for the most part simply indicated they were listening with an open mind. The local Media General operation of NBC 8 WFLA-TV and the Tampa Tribune garnered much of the attention. Media General defended the arrangement, saying it puts more resources at the disposal of its reporters; others argued that it is simply a way to repurpose one story and diminishes the number of independent versions of a given event. Critics of consolidation included citizens who fail to hear local talent on the radio and who were dissatisfied with the quality of much of the news (the glut of attention on Anna Nicole Smith was mentioned as a case in point), and smaller media companies worried about their continued ability to compete with bigger and bigger vertically-integrated local clusters.
RBR observation:
In short, been there, done that. This is not to diminish the points made on both sides. The media landscape is getting more rather than less complex, and this whole argument may seem laughably quaint in ten years, like arguing over cassette or eight-track. For now, Tampa is just another way station on the trek to the end of the Quadrennial Review which kicked off in 2002 and which is still not within sight of the light at the end of the tunnel.
Commissioner comments
* Chairman Kevin Martin: "The Commission has three core goals that our rules are intended to further: competition, diversity and localism. I recognize many of the concerns expressed about increased consolidation and preservation of diversity. Also critical to our review is exploring and understanding the competitive realities of the media marketplace. Some of our rules have not been updated for years and may no longer reflect the current marketplace."
* Commissioner Michael Copps: "We don't need to play just defense - we can start playing offense. We can not only defeat bad new rules - although we must still do that. But now we are in a position to revisit the bad old rules that got us into this mess in the first place. And we can go on from there to restore meaningful public interest responsibilities to our broadcast media. For starters, let's go back to an honest-too-goodness licensing system that doesn't grant slam-dunk renewals, but stops to ask if a license-holder is really doing its job to serve the common good....Let's also put what stations are doing to actually meet their public interest obligations up on the Web, so citizens can know how their airwaves are being used. And let's make sure that all that new digital capacity we're giving broadcasters returns something positive for our communities and local talent and civic issues coverage."
* Commissioner Adelstein: "Despite disagreements over the Commission's regulations, there should be no disagreement that media ownership is really about democracy. And fundamental to it is the "uninhibited marketplace of ideas," where everyone has a right to receive, share and exchange a diversity of news, information, and music. By controlling the information you receive and shaping public discourse, media companies influence our culture, politics, and ideas in a very powerful way."
* Commissioner Tate: "I welcome the opportunity to hear from the citizens of the Tampa-St. Petersburg, Florida area - a thriving technology center, the largest media market in the state, and 12th largest television DMA in the United States. It is also home to the Tampa Tribune and WFLA-TV, which together constitute one of approximately 40 grandfathered newspaper-broadcast combinations in the country, which should provide us with a unique opportunity to learn about the effects - both positive and negative - such combinations have."
* Commissioner McDowell: "The debate over broadcast ownership is concerns the vitality of our democracy and the appropriate balance among competitive efficiencies, diversity of voices and local focus. I've learned quickly that this debate elicits the opinions and passions of people from all walks of life from all over our nation."
