American Forum - National

American Forum - National | 02/12/2004
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FCC Deregulation Played Role in Halftime Show Fiasco

By: Andrew Jay Schwartzman


OP ED

FCC Chairman Michael Powell spoke for millions of Americans recently when he condemned CBS's Super Bowl halftime fiasco. But his blame was misdirected. CBS, its subsidiary MTV, and the performers were following the incentives of the market structure Mr. Powell's FCC has created under direction from Congress. There is a direct cause and effect relationship between media concentration and exploitative programming. The halftime show is a just another symptom of a syndrome caused by deregulation.

Relaxed ownership rules have created giant conglomerates lacking community ties and obligated, not to the American public, but to Wall Street money managers looking for better numbers on this quarter's earnings report. It is not an accident that Infinity, CBS's corporate sibling, and Clear Channel are atop the list of the FCC's indecency hit parade. The result is a broadcasting industry that has no sense of obligation to the American public even though they still receive, free of charge, the right to use ever-more valuable publicly owned spectrum. Locally produced programming, news and public affairs are increasingly seen as an expensive frill rather than a duty.

Last summer, the FCC made a bad situation even worse when it adopted sweeping deregulation that puts profit-seeking stunts above civic values. The FCC removed structural protections for 97 percent of America's population, leaving the bottom line as the final, untrammeled arbiter in control of the public airwaves. Among the activities the FCC sought to promote last year, was cross-promotion among jointly owned outlets. It was exactly this cross-promotion, between MTV and CBS, which laid the groundwork for the half-time show fiasco.

Chairman Powell has implemented his proclamation that "my religion is the market," which is the same approach that leads to the conclusion that no publicity is bad publicity: as long as the dollars flow, how we get there is irrelevant. Most likely Ms. Jackson and Mr. Timberlake thought that their stunt, while possibly being officially criticized by the media "suits," would actually please the higher-ups by adding ratings and additional opportunities for cross-promotion for both MTV and CBS. While the public's and Powell's reaction mean that the networks are scrambling to stop the bleeding the basic economic structures that led to the stunt in the first place remain in place as the affirmative policy of this country.

Powell's about-face from chief deregulator to chief moralist, ironically, is a political move that adopts the worst of the right's ideologies instead of the best. Powell's policies leave the media landscape to the conglomerates to run as they see fit until they violate a particular moral code. This approach invites government involvement into specific programming decisions, a place that most First Amendment advocates--both liberal and conservative alike--would prefer the government not to tread. The structural public interest media regulation eschewed by Powell, which ensures multiple owners, corporate responsibility, and responsiveness to local communities, stays out of moralistic government pronouncements and gives rise to concerns about government censorship. More First Amendment friendly approaches, such as the legal requirement that the FCC examine the character of broadcast applicants before they ever receive a license has gone unenforced for years, during the same deregulatory decade of the 1980s when the FCC tossed out broadcaster obligations to simply meet with local citizens.

The extreme deregulatory steps taken by the FCC last summer, combined with the courageous efforts of one FCC Commissioner to educate the country about this nation's media policy, resulted in approximately 2 million messages sent to the FCC opposing its media deregulation proposals. Despite this public outcry, and a corresponding concern in Congress, the FCC moved ahead. A court in Philadelphia heard challenges to the FCC's decision this week. Its decision will come later this year. Even if the court finds that the FCC failed its obligations, the court cannot do much more than send back the rules to the agency with instructions to try again. The court may even find the FCC was properly carrying out its Congressional directive for at least some of the rules. Before the FCC makes another attempt at handing the public over to advertisers on a silver platter, Congress should show the courage of its convictions, and send a much more clear message to the FCC.

Only a reorientation of American media policy away from a mantra that "greed is good" to one of civic engagement as its highest virtue will begin to address the environment that produced Ms. Jackson's and Mr. Timberlake's stunt. It is a structural problem that deserves a structural solution.

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Schwartzman is the President and CEO of the Media Access Project.


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About Andrew Jay Schwartzman:
Andrew Jay Schwartzman, MAP's President and CEO, served as MAP's Executive Director from 1978 through October 1996. He is recognized as one of the foremost authorities on telecommunications public policy. Mr. Schwartzman frequently appears on network TV and radio and in other public fora as an advocate of the public's First Amendment right to have access to the broadest range of information. He is called upon often to be the public representative at Congressional and FCC hearings on telecommunications issues. Mr. Schwartzman contributed the legal and regulatory entries to Les Brown's Encyclopedia of Television, and is the author of the telecommunications chapter in the Encyclopedia of the Consumer Movement. His articles have appeared in general, trade, and legal publications, including The Federal Communications Law Journal, Electronic Media, The Washington Post, COMM/ENT Law Journal, the ABA Journal, USA Today, NTAS Quarterly, Variety, and the American Bar Journal. He is coauthor of the telecommunications chapter of the Citizens Transition Project's Changing America: Blueprints for the New Administration (Newmarket Press, 1993). In 1993, Mr. Schwartzman received the Everett C. Parker Award for his career contributions to the public interest in communications. The National Law Journal has listed Mr. Schwartzman as a "bell ringer," one of the nation's thirty leading communications lawyers. Schwartzman received his undergraduate and law degrees from the University of Pennsylvania.



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