FCC Proposing Leaving Local TV/Radio Ownership Caps In Place

According to a source familiar with the document, Federal Communications Commission Chairman Julius Genachowski has circulated a rulemaking proposal recommending the FCC scrap the radio-TV cross-ownership rules, but leave in place the radio and TV local market ownership caps and essentially preserve the FCC's attempted loosening of the newspaper-broadcast cross-ownership rules, which the FCC tried to do under Republican Chairman Kevin Martin. "It is more or less the same framework of the 2006 Quadrennial," said the source of the newspaper-broadcast change.

The Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NPRM), which is currently being circulated among the commissioners, may be voted without being on a public agenda meeting, according to the source -- there are apparently at least three votes for it -- but the final order will likely be scheduled for that public vote sometime next year, after a sufficient notice and comment period on the proposed changes. Since the NPRM has not yet been voted, there is still opportunity for commissioners to make suggested tweaks and modifications, and for industry to pitch its points, but circulation of the item essentially represents the chairman's OK on the plan. While the NPRM basically reinstates the Martin plan of making combos between TV stations and newspapers in the top 20 markets presumptively in the public interest, it does put out for comment the Martin four-part test for determining whether such combos should be allowed and whether they should be the criteria.

(11/18)