Cross-Ownership Changes: Wait Till Next Year

While Federal Communications Commission Chairman Julius Genachowski has said he feels the media's pain and has opened the agency's own inquiry into the state of journalism, the FCC won't be taking any action on newspaper-broadcast cross-ownership for many months. Chairman Genachowski also has asked the courts not to weigh in until the FCC has had time to reconsider the issue. In a letter to the Third Circuit, FCC General Counsel Austin Schlick said the decision will be superseded by the 2010 review. He cautioned further that the current petition does not represent the views of the FCC anyway since three of the five members were not on the commission when the final order came out in 2008. Schlick's letter also mentioned that one of those commissioners, Michael Copps, voted against it. Schlick told the court that there was a method in not getting ahead of the broader 2010 review: "It would be difficult to justify second-guessing decisions that were made based on the record in the 2006 proceeding, when Commission staff are simultaneously gathering an updated record concerning the same issues." For broadcasters, though, it means a further delay after years of regulatory uncertainty. The commission's ownership rules have been in some form or another of regulatory limbo since 2003, when a more deregulatory rule change by then-FCC Chairman Michael Powell was stayed by the Third Circuit after it was challenged by consolidation foes.