Draft Media Ownership Rules Don't Reflect the Record, Pai Says; NAA Cites Net Competition

FCC draft media ownership rules “have nothing to do with the evidence in the record, principled decision-making, or the law,” and would be more appropriate for “the world that existed in the 1970s,” said Commissioner Ajit Pai in a statement Wednesday as an order circulates (see 1606270083). “Last month, the FCC had no problem approving not one, but two multibillion dollar cable mergers,” Pai said. “Yet, it now gets the vapors at the prospect of a newspaper in Scranton, Pennsylvania owning a single radio station.” It's likely newspaper/broadcast cross-ownership rules “will outlive the print newspaper industry itself,” Pai said. An agency spokeswoman declined to comment. Also Wednesday, the Newspaper Association of America criticized the draft order. “The NAA is stunned that any policymaker in the Internet era would propose to keep a 1970s-era law that prevents broadcast stations and newspapers from being owned by the same company," said CEO David Chavern. He said he's "deeply disappointed" the draft would keep in place the 40-year-old cross-ownership rule "that is more obsolete than the eight-track tape or the mainframe computer." Investments and deals "will continue to flow to unregulated Internet businesses that compete with news publishers for advertising, but investment and collaboration will be blocked" for newspapers and radio and TV, Chavern said.