FCC invites VCU professor to testify on proposed broadcast ownership rules

By Mike Frontiero
VCU School of Education

Reducing federal regulations on media ownership would not be in the public's best interest, according to David Croteau, Ph.D., a professor of sociology at Virginia Commonwealth University, who has spent more than a decade writing and teaching about mass media and its role in society.

Croteau, co-author of the book "The Business of Media: Corporate Media and the Public Interest," was invited to testify at the Federal Communications Commission's only official public hearing on proposed regulatory changes. All five FCC commissioners, including chairman Michael Powell, attended the Feb. 27 hearing at the Greater Richmond Convention Center. Croteau participated in a panel discussion on competition issues.

He argued that easing regulations will serve mainly to increase the profits of major media conglomerates and would likely promote further concentration of media ownership, reduce diversity in commercial media content, and lower the quality and quantity of locally produced programming.

"We need only look at past experience," Croteau said. "The removal of the national cap on radio ownership in 1996 resulted in the dramatic concentration of ownership in that industry. In six years, the number of radio stations increased more than five percent, while the number of radio owners decreased by more than one-third. A single corporation, Clear Channel Communications, went from owning 40 stations before the rule changes to owning more than 1200 stations today - five times more than its nearest competitor."

Croteau said further evidence that the public interest is not served by more concentrated ownership includes a recent study by The Project for Excellence in Journalism, which found that smaller television station groups tend to produce higher quality newscasts than stations owned by larger companies, "thus contradicting the claim that the deep-pockets of major conglomerates inevitably help news and public affairs."

"We have a host of unanswered questions about the likely impact of individual rule changes," Croteau said. "More research needs to be done."