Media Consolidation Looms With New FCC Rules

W A S H I N G T O N, June 2 -- After Natalie Maines, lead singer of the Dixie Chicks, told a concert crowd, "We're ashamed the president of the United States is from Texas," angry listeners called local radio stations threatening boycotts if they didn't pull the group's songs.

Some individual stations complied, but others went far beyond local action. In fact, the nation's second-largest radio chain, Cumulus, banned the group from all of its country-western stations — 42 in all.

"It's only the tip of the iceberg of the kind of control that can happen if we permit more consolidation," said Donna Halper, a radio consultant.

Click here to read how critics fear further consolidation could affect you.

New FCC Rules?

Today, by a 3-2 vote along party lines, the Republican-controlled Federal Communications Commission approved rules that likely will allow large media companies to expand their reach over local television stations and newspapers.

Some critics — who include such unlikely bedfellows as the National Rifle Association and the National Organization for Women — complain the issue has received little national debate.

Networks currently are limited to owning only those TV stations that collectively reach 35 percent of the nation's viewing public or less but this reach would be increased to 45 percent coverage. The new regulations would permit more dual ownership of a newspaper and a television station in the same community.

In the most competitive markets, like New York or Los Angeles, the same company would be allowed to own up to three television stations.

FCC chairman Michael Powell, who wrote the proposal, said current limits on media ownership are outdated. FCC officials also have complained that current rules have been successful targets of lawsuits in recent years, and new laws are needed to maintain effective FCC control. In addition, they say, Congress has urged the FCC to regularly reevaluate and update its regulations.

"Many of these rules predate cable television," Powell said in an interview with Nightline. "Most all of them predate direct broadcast satellite television. All of them predate the Internet. Many of them predate the VCR. These rules have to be modified to reflect the media environment our children see, not the ones that our grandparents saw. And I think that's one of their vulnerabilities."