A newspaper recently started by a station owner in the same market should be exempt from cross-ownership restrictions in coming rules, Allbritton Communications told FCC officials. Any new media-ownership rule should exclude “start-up publications” and “specialty newspapers” from the cross-ownership ban, Allbritton General Counsel Jerald Fritz told Commissioners Jonathan Adelstein, Michael Copps and Robert McDowell. Fritz also met Nov. 15 with aides to Chairman Kevin Martin and Commissioner Deborah Tate. Deals to sell publishers of newspapers which use “the resources of a broadcast station” and selling the broadcaster itself should be allowed without triggering the cross-ownership ban, ex parte filings said. “Only in this way will the Commission encourage, and not penalize, the expenditure of resources to increase the outlets for viewpoint expression.” Some senators and companies want Martin to expand his ownership proposal beyond lifting the cross-ownership ban in most cases in large markets (CD Nov 26 p3). Allbritton owns WJLA-TV Washington, D.C., and The Politico, a newspaper started in January that the company contends is exempt from cross- ownership rules because it’s published less than five days a week and isn’t a general-circulation publication.
Notable CROSS rulings
The FCC may need to deregulate media ownership more than FCC Chairman Kevin Martin wants, 17 senators said. In two letters, more senators publicly support easing rules created by the 1996 Telecom Act than have backed a bill proposing to slow Martin’s quest for deregulation (CD Oct 25 p1).
Commissioners will vote Tuesday on whether to adopt media ownership proposals (CD July 31 p1) by the Minority Media & Telecommunications Council and others to help people of color buy TV and radio stations, two FCC officials said. They said an order that FCC Chairman Kevin Martin circulated Nov. 15 would approve many of the minority ownership plans and deny or seek additional comment on others. The order and a related further-rulemaking notice deal with 34 minority ownership proposals the commission sought public comment on Aug. 2 in its media ownership review, FCC officials said.
The FCC wants input on whether two leveraged buyout firms should be allowed to keep stakes in a newspaper publisher and a broadcaster they agreed to divest so they could buy Univision for $13.8 billion (CD March 28 p5), a public notice said Tuesday. Thanks to the deal, Providence Equity Partners’ 16 percent interest in Freedom Communications and Thomas Lee Partners’ 25 percent of Cumulus Media violate FCC ownership rules. The two buyout firms were given six months to divest those assets. After getting FCC extensions of a Sept. 29 deadline to do so, Lee and Providence asked the agency to rule that they satisfied ownership rules via plans to convert some investments into stakes they contend are unattributable under agency rules. Providence proposed to convert its voting interest in publisher Freedom into a non-voting stake, said the FCC. On Oct. 22, Univision’s buyers told the agency that Lee converted its voting stake in the broadcaster’s owner into non-voting stock. Lee says the conversion means its stake in broadcaster Cumulus no longer breaks FCC radio/TV cross- ownership rules. The FCC wants comments on the plans by Dec. 4, it said. The regulator waived its own rules to not seek replies “given the time-sensitive nature of the requests.”
The FCC has been considering digital-TV public interest rules since 1995, a year longer than it’s been engaged in media cross-ownership proceedings, the Benton Foundation and Campaign Legal Center wrote Commissioner Robert McDowell Tuesday. Monday, McDowell asked if anyone knew of an agency proceeding that’s taken longer than the cross-ownership review and its various incarnations (CD Nov 20 p1). The commission should finish the public interest proceeding before acting on Chairman Kevin Martin’s proposal that the FCC partly lift a 32-year ban on cross-ownership in the largest 20 markets, wrote Benton Chairman Charles Benton and Campaign Legal Center Policy Director Meredith McGehee. TV stations already must serve community education, information, civic and minority needs, they wrote. “Further guidance from the FCC is necessary to clarify how these public interest obligations apply to DTV broadcasters and to answer outstanding questions raised by the increased technological capabilities of the digital medium.”
The EU international mobile roaming regulation is bringing positive results but problems remain, Information Society and Media Commissioner Viviane Reding and several European Parliament (EP) members said after a Tuesday “stock- taking” workshop. The rule, which caps roaming rates at or below a legislated “Eurotariff,” has applied since September. Despite being “extraordinarily criticized,” the law has cut charges up to 60 percent, pleasing consumers, Reding said. Problems predicted by the mobile industry have not materialized, she said. Operators who said they would lose money are making more than before as travellers more often use their phones abroad, and national calling prices aren’t rising, she said. She and MEPs said some companies still are not complying with a requirement to tell customers via text message of applicable calling prices as they cross borders. The glitches likely result from smaller providers’ technical problems, not their recalcitrance, EP Internal Market Committee Chairman Arlene McCarthy said. Committee drafter Joseph Muscat called the new rates a “European success story,” not the “gloom and doom scenario” industry lobbyists predicted. If mobile operators want the regulation’s sunset clause to take effect, they should be “really careful about any tricks” they might be tempted to play, he said. The strongest criticism now is over continuing high SMS and data transmission rates, McCarthy said. There’s no evidence that data messaging is getting cheaper, and lawmakers want industry to step up to the plate to avoid regulation, she added. The roaming regulation was a very unusual way for the European Commission to proceed, Reding said. Industry was unwilling to solve the problem so the EC had to reform the system. Reform is also the aim of the telecommunications package she unveiled last week, said Reding. Absent “heavy intervention” by EU institutions, nothing will change, she said. The EC wants national regulators to lower text messaging rates 70 percent by next summer, Reding said. If the European Regulators Group can’t do so, she said, the EC will impose a new telecom authority proposed in the regulatory package. But Reding said people shouldn’t “go to war” over institutional issues but should ask what means are available to get problems solved and then take the best option.
Commissioner Robert McDowell criticized FCC Chairman Kevin Martin for not seeking public comment before trying to get a vote on a finding that would let him regulate cable operators much more than other media overseen by the agency. Speaking Monday at the Media Institute, McDowell said Martin is pursuing “unprecedented regulation” of cable. He said Martin wants to deregulate other media by ending a 32-year ban on common ownership of TV stations and newspapers in the top 20 markets, while seeking more regulatory authority over cable through an upcoming video competition report. “If this were a classic novel, it might be entitled ‘A Tale of Two Regimes,'” McDowell said.
The FCC is urged to give fast approval to Tribune’s $8.2 billion sale in two company filings at the agency. Samuel Zell, buying the company along with its employees, met Tuesday with Chairman Kevin Martin and Chief of Staff Daniel Gonzalez, seeking approval of the deal before a Dec. 18 FCC meeting. Martin wants commissioners to vote then to lift cross-ownership rules in many circumstances for the largest 20 markets, a move that would help pave the way for Tribune’s sale (CD Nov 14 p7). Privatization of the broadcaster and newspaper publisher “would be jeopardized if the pending Tribune applications were not acted upon until that meeting,” said an ex parte filing. Tribune should get temporary cross-ownership waivers, Zell said. Another Tribune filing asked the FCC to deny a request by public-interest and religious groups that the agency pause its review of the transaction given the company’s alleged ex parte violations. The United Church of Christ and the Media Alliance had said ex partes of two meetings between a Tribune executive and FCC officials weren’t filed in a commission docket until weeks later (CD Nov 13 p14). Tribune said the documents were filed right away -- they just didn’t list the docket number, 07-119, which the FCC didn’t require, it said. “No one honestly may represent that the applicants hid the two presentations from public view.”
The part of FCC Chairman Kevin Martin’s media ownership proposal of most concern to some commissioners and opponents of consolidation is a waiver process, said agency and public- interest group officials. Tuesday, Martin unveiled a plan that would let the FCC under certain circumstances waive a ban on joint ownership of a broadcaster and a newspaper in smaller markets (CD Nov 14 p7). In the 20 largest markets, cross-ownership rules would be lifted entirely for companies not seeking to merge a top-four TV station and in cities with at least eight other newspapers and TV outlets.
The European Commission Tuesday unveiled its plan to revamp EU telecommunications regulation, setting the stage for what is expected to be heated debate among governments and with the European Parliament. While many of the key proposals have been circulating for months, the regulatory package contained at least one surprise -- the proposal to merge the European Network and Information Security Agency (ENISA) with a new European Telecom Market Authority (ETMA). The proposal is one of several likely to continue to spark criticism from various players in the e-communications sector.