Disapproving Federal Communications Commission Broadcast Media Ownership Rule

DISAPPROVING FEDERAL COMMUNICATIONS COMMISSION BROADCAST MEDIA OWNERSHIP RULE

Mr. WYDEN. Mr. President, I rise today in support of the resolution. I particularly want to commend my colleague from North Dakota, Mr. Dorgan, and our friend from Mississippi, Senator Lott, as well, for their bipartisan efforts.

I believe I have sat through every minute of these hearings because I believe what the Commerce Committee has been looking at is extraordinarily important. I want to take a few minutes today to outline for the Senate and others who are just beginning to get involved in this issue what I think is at stake.

First, I think it is important to be clear about what is ahead. In my view, the big media conglomerates want to make a meal out of the Nation's small media outlets, and I believe the Senate needs to step in and cancel this feast. That is what this resolution would do and why it is so important.

I would like to begin, in discussing this issue, by talking about the fact that the Senate has been down this road before. In the discussion with respect to radio, there was considerable debate about the deregulation of radio at the time. Extensive testimony was taken. Arguments were made that this was an experiment that should be allowed to go forward. In 1996, the Congress relaxed the limits on radio station ownership. What we heard during our hearings, and I asked Chairman Powell about this specifically with respect to radio, was truly alarming.

Chairman Powell, under questioning that I engaged him in in committee, admitted now there was a problem with respect to concentration of radio. Chairman McCain attested to it as well this afternoon. So the challenge now for the Senate is to make sure the Senate does not allow a repeat of the failed media experiment.

What went on in radio is something that has not worked. It is an experiment, where the drawbacks outweigh the advantages.
The Senate has an opportunity to make sure that the failed experiment that has taken a toll on localism, choice, and diversity across this country is not to be repeated. In my view, it is the centerpiece of the argument as to why this resolution is so important.

There are not a lot of rallies outside the offices of Senators for big media kind of feeding frenzies. All of the input has essentially been the other way. The public has been concerned that as the conglomerates get bigger, the diet of news in particular is going to get blander and certainly less diverse and less locally oriented and more mass produced.

We have been very troubled about what we have seen in our home State of Oregon. In Eugene, OR, for example, a network affiliate wanted to shift around program time slots so it could offer the city's first 10 p.m. newscast. It was not going to cut programming. It was going to shift some of the schedules. The network said no, because they wanted to maintain what they described as a consistent nationwide distribution pattern.

As a result, Eugene residents still have no 10 p.m. news program even though the local station, a family-owned business, wanted to offer it.

The lesson has been clear. For the network, nationwide business judgments trump local interests. That is the story of what has happened in Eugene. The big networks may claim they are fully committed to localism, but in practice they behave differently than a truly local owner would.

When they came before the committee, I asked about this issue and they said, it is a free country. That local network affiliate does not have to take network programming 7 to 8, or 8 to 9, or 9 to 10. It is a free country. They can make their own choices.

Essentially, the freedom they have described for a local affiliate is the freedom to go broke. A local affiliate cannot, in effect, write off network programming for most of the evening because they are committed to public service news and the opportunity for citizens to be heard.

There has to be a balance. There has to be a balance between national judgments and local judgments, and I believe the Federal Communications Commission would skew that balance. They would skew it towards a media that was less sensitive to local concerns and local interests, and would be less diverse and offer fewer choices. I believe that is why these rules need to be maintained so as to have a proper balance rather than a skewed approach to media regulation in our country as the Federal Communications Commission's approach would do.

If we look at the media landscape today, it is pretty hard to argue that the Federal Communications Commission is holding the reins too tightly at present. Concentration is already on the rise in television, radio, cable, and newspapers. Viacom, News Corporation, AOL/Time Warner, Walt Disney, and others have amassed a very broad and extensive array of media properties, and it would seem to me that given the trend towards concentration at present, the current FCC's rules are even more important than before.

I think what it comes down to is that the Federal Communications Commission's approach is going to take a toll on several vital areas of the public's interest. I believe, for example, that the diversity of viewpoints in medium-size towns across the country will be reduced if the same company owns the local newspaper, the most watched television stations, local radio
stations, and perhaps the cable system, too. We heard testimony to that effect in the Senate Commerce Committee.

If each of these media outlets at the local level are part of a big nationwide chain that is making programming decisions at corporate headquarters thousands of miles away, what is going to be the bottom line emphasis? Are those people at distant conference tables thousands of miles from our local communities going to put the kind of focus on local news and local programming that my constituents want? The evidence suggests otherwise.

With respect to creativity and independent content, if the local cable system, the local broadcaster, and the main satellite providers in effect are able to control substantial programming interests, we do have a way to preserve the kind of local orientation that our citizens feel so strongly about. If that changes, and I believe it would change under the Federal Communications Commission approach, I think what is going to happen in the future is everywhere independent programmers turn, they are going to be told by the national interests, by these national economic powers: Sorry, but we have to give preference to the programs that we produce in-house, rather than the local cable system, the local broadcaster, the main satellite providers who, today, offer so much creativity and diverse programming for local communities.

Finally, it seems to me that the Federal Communications Commission approach is going to take a toll on objective news coverage. With respect to news outlets reporting independently on issues that affect the parent companies, you ought to begin the discussion just by noting that ABC—and it has already been reported with respect to this matter—that ABC News, owned by Disney, quashed an investigative story on Disney theme parks. It seems to me that more cross-ownership is going to create more opportunities for conflicts of interest in news coverage and that will reduce the kind of independent reporting that has consistently been in the public interest.

A lot of the advocates for these changes, these powerful conglomerates, point to the idea that these are tough economic times; that some media outlets may be hurting. Their argument has been that it may be efficient, as they describe it, from a pure dollars and cents perspective, to allow different media businesses to combine their operations.

I would only say to those who make that argument that efficiency is not the only thing at stake in this debate. Sure, if all anybody cares about in the United States is efficiency, why not just have one single nationwide news bureau? They could run everything and people could say we sure have efficiency now. We wouldn't have all these reporters and commentators running around trying to beat each other and scoop each other and the like. But I think it is pretty obvious to Senators that would not be in the public interest because it would reduce diversity and reduce choice and reduce the kind of robust public debate that America wants.

So there are other values besides efficiency. That is the point of the current rules, that they help to balance these competing interests.

I will wrap up because I see other colleagues waiting to make their remarks. I think what has happened in this country, and with the FCC's set of initiatives in this area, is that the Federal Communications Commission has rung the dinner bell—they have rung the dinner bell for these powerful conglomerates who are out there licking their chops at the prospect of making a meal out of these small outlets.

As I said earlier, I hope the Senate, when it looks at the facts, when it looks at what has gone on in the failed experiment of radio—and I want to emphasize that—I think the Federal Communications Commission will say: All right, these big media companies are at the dinner table. They want to gobble up these small outlets.

I hope the Senate votes in favor of this resolution and cancels the Federal Communications Commission's feeding frenzy. I hope the Senate will do that when we vote next week.

I yield the floor.