The World According to Dick Wiley

Former Federal Communications Commission Chairman and high-powered communication attorney/lobbyist Dick Wiley believes that neither the Democratic Congress nor the soon-to-be reconstituted Democratic FCC is likely to provide broadcasters with any relief from ownership restrictions. But Wiley said he hopes that the incoming FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski will be "pragmatic" enough to recognize that there is no need to load up broadcasters with new regulations aimed at increasing "localism." According to Wiley, FCC has already tentatively concluded that stations must offer minimum amounts of local programming, organize community advisory boards, locate their main studios within their communities of license and make detailed reports on what public affairs programming they aired. "None of that is necessary," he said. "It is all counterproductive." "Broadcasters must — and actually do — serve their local communities in order to survive," Wiley said. "That is their raison d'être. That's their absolute assignment and it makes them different than any other industry." That broadcasters, particularly those in small markets, have little chance for ownership relief is unfortunate, Wiley added. "For years and years and years, some of us have been hoping that the commission and the courts and Congress would understand that broadcasting is not the center of the universe anymore. ... It's competing as a one-channel free service increasingly in a multichannel, subscription-oriented universe."