COPPS: BROADCASTERS 'CAPTIVES' OF WALL STREET Jeffrey Yorke – Radio and Records FCC commissioner Michael Copps, speaking to the audience at the public hearing on media ownership held in Portland, Maine, Thursday night (June 28), said he believes that many broadcasters "still have that flame to serve the public interest burning in their breasts" but that "there aren't as many of them now -- there aren't as many station owners any more because of consolidation." He went on, "Those who remain are less and less captains of their own fate these days and more and more captives of unforgiving Wall Street and Madison Avenue expectations."
Copps, who has led a personal campaign to curtail media consolidation, pooh-poohed those in the radio industry who suggest that the FCC should "rely more and more on marketplace forces as a proxy for serving the public interest." He said, "They seem to trust that the public interest will somehow magically trump the urge to build power and profit and that localism will somehow survive."
Fellow Democratic commissioner Jonathan Adelstein told the audience that "the FCC continues to license valuable public airwaves -- for free -- to broadcasters, in exchange for service to local communities." He went on, "Localism is, therefore, the central obligation of every broadcast licensee, to air programming that is relevant and responsive to the local community's interests, tastes and needs. So we are here to learn your answer to a basic question: Are broadcasters providing you with the local service you deserve?"
Adelstein took his own shot at Wall Street, saying, "Sadly, today, quality journalism is too often sacrificed to meet Wall Street quarterly projections. Owners of multiple media outlets lose incentive to invest in independent and competitive news operations in the same market."
Adelstein even went so far as to talk about the FCC's own failures in policing the airwaves in ownership matters. "The commission's own study, which was originally buried until Sen. [Barbara] Boxer demanded the FCC publicly release it, showed that locally owned TV stations provided more local news," he said. "And while the commission has failed to complete a similar study of radio, we hear across the country that centralized playlists and payola are shutting out local musicians and unmanned radio stations have replaced local DJs."
Commissioners Deborah Taylor Tate and Robert McDowell also attended the meeting, held at Portland High School, but FCC chairman Kevin Martin unable to attend. A sixth and final regional meeting is expected to be set for some time this fall. |