WASHINGTON — Keeping current media ownership rules in place could squeeze the broadcast networks and drive them to end free TV, FCC Chairman Michael Powell said Tuesday, campaigning for the changes he favors.
Another Federal Communications Commission member said the changes Powell wants will lead to "more sensationalism, more crassness," more sameness and less serious news coverage.
Powell said adjustments are needed to reflect a market changed by cable TV, satellite broadcasts and the Internet. He also said if the FCC fails to act, outdated rules will be swept away by court challenges.
"What I worry about is that all of the rules will be eliminated — not by us, but a judicial regime," he said. "If you don't do surgery on this patient, it is going to die. Free over-the-air TV is going to die. The rules are going to die."
With the FCC set to vote next Monday on sweeping changes to the regulations, Powell conducted a series of one-on-one interviews with The Associated Press and other media. The two Democrats on the five-member FCC held a news conference to sway opinion against Powell and the two other Republicans on the panel.
Critics say altering the decades-old rules governing ownership of newspapers and TV and radio stations will kick off a merger frenzy and put a few corporations in control of what people watch, read and hear.
"We are on the eve of the most sweeping and potentially destructive overhaul of the FCC's media rules in the history of media broadcasting," Commissioner Jonathan Adelstein said. More mergers, he said, will "spell more sensationalism, more crassness, homogenization and even less serious news coverage than we have today."
Powell agreed that some limits are needed. He said the FCC's new rules will protect competition and diverse and local viewpoints while permitting beneficial mergers.
He said the changes also are needed to protect media sources people take for granted.
"We're trying to make sure that quality content doesn't continue to flee to pay television," Powell said.
He argued that restrictions currently in place make it harder for broadcasters to compete with cable and satellite in sports broadcasting, for instance. "I don't think people who have $60 to $80 a month should be the only ones who see the sports season, which is increasingly the case in America."
Adelstein disagreed with Powell's reasoning, saying, "Free over-the-air television is alive and well."
"Is it the job of the FCC to make sure every big television network in this country makes a lot of money?" he said. "I think our first job is to make sure the American people get a diversity of viewpoints."
Adelstein and fellow Democratic Commissioner Michael Copps joined with about two dozen groups opposed to the deregulation favored by Powell and the commission's two other Republicans. They spoke before a backdrop of mail baskets filled with about 250,000 post cards sent by National Rifle Association members opposed to eased ownership rules.
The FCC is considering eliminating many of the restrictions on a single company owning combinations of newspapers and TV and radio stations in the same city. Another proposal would raise a cap preventing one company from owning TV stations that reach more than 35 percent of U.S. households.
Supporters of the existing rules including consumer advocates, small broadcasters, writers, musicians and academics say restrictions are needed because most people still get their news primarily from television and newspapers.