FCC's 'star' media regulator Copps bows out

The Federal Communications Commission is losing its rock star regulator. At 71, Commissioner Michael Copps is retiring after 10 years, and while he may not look like a glamour boy, few regulators have received a standing ovation like he did at the National Conference for Media Reform in Memphis in 2007.

The FCC is defined by whoever is chairman. The chairman is the Mick Jagger; he has the mic and controls the policy agenda. The commissioners are the bandmates and over the past 10 years Commissioner Copps has often been the heart and soul — the Keith Richards — of the panel. Media consolidation was and still is Copps’s policy anthem. He reminisced with POLITICO recently about how the issue took him on the road and brought him face to face with thousands of people across the country. The Copps Road Show made him a hero to what the Occupy Wall Street protesters refer to as “the 99 percent.” “I believe in taking this commission out on the road so that the American people can see us and get to know us and we can get to know the American people and see more of them,” he said. “It’s so important as we transition to our media to the digital realm.”