WASHINGTON — The Senate Commerce Committee will consider a proposal to roll back a new regulation allowing companies to own television stations reaching nearly half the nation's viewers, Chairman John McCain, R-Ariz., said Wednesday.
The Republican-controlled FCC voted 3-2 Monday to ease regulations governing how many newspapers and TV and radio stations a company can own and in what combinations. The party-line vote changed the national TV ownership limit so a company can reach 45 percent of the U.S. households instead of 35 percent.
McCain said he opposes proposed legislation to counter that change, but his committee still will consider it this month.
"I have a long voting record in support of deregulation," McCain said. "But the business of media ownership, which can have such an immense effect on the nature and quality of our democracy, is too important to be dealt with so categorically."
McCain said he would put language in an upcoming bill to clarify that the FCC should have the authority to strengthen as well as relax ownership restrictions if that serves the public interest.
The five FCC commissioners testified Wednesday before McCain's committee.
Many media companies said the changes were needed because the old restrictions hindered their ability to grow and compete in a market changed by cable TV, satellite broadcasts and the Internet.
Critics said the changes would lead to mergers that could ultimately put a few giant companies in control of what most people see, hear and read.
The FCC also allowed individual companies to own more TV stations in some cities and largely ended a ban on one company owning a newspaper and a broadcast station in a community.
Most committee members criticized the FCC's decisions, with some threatening congressional action to roll back many of the changes.
South Carolina Sen. Ernest Hollings, the committee's ranking Democrat, has proposed legislation setting the national TV ownership limit back to 35 percent.
Hollings said FCC Chairman Michael Powell has been engaged in "spin and fraud" in his defense of deregulation and the FCC has become "an instrument of corporate greed."
Powell said the new rules will improve competition and diversity in the media industry. He said the FCC was required by Congress to update the rules.
"The commission does not have the luxury of always doing what is popular," Powell said. "We did our job and I believe we did it well."