Seattle Times

[Commentary] Five months into his term, Federal Communications Commission Chairman Tom Wheeler has arrived at a critical juncture. The proposed Comcast-Time Warner merger, a court’s rejection of the FCC’s network neutrality rules and the looming deadline for the commission’s media-ownership review provide an opportunity for Wheeler and the commission to begin reshaping our media landscape.

That landscape, now dominated by a few large players, needs to reflect the dynamism and vibrancy of our nation’s diverse multitudes. Here are some ideas on how the FCC should proceed:

• Say no to the outrageous Comcast-Time Warner Cable deal. We need more competition, not less, in the cable and broadband industries. This merger isn’t the way to deliver it.
• Answer the US Court of Appeals decision that struck down its open Internet, aka net neutrality, rules with a set of new rules that guarantee it -- this time in a way that will pass muster in the courts.
• Resist pressures to leave loopholes open and further relax media-ownership rules. If it permits a few billionaire moguls to monopolize the airwaves, the commission will do the nation a tremendous disservice.
• Take a hard, new look at what is keeping African-American, Hispanic and other minority entrepreneurs and women out of broadcasting and what help is needed for media to better reflect the diversity of the country

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[Copps was a Federal Communications Commissioner from 2001 to 2011 and currently heads the Media & Democracy Reform Initiative at Common Cause, a nonpartisan nonprofit in Washington, DC]

[Commentary] As Seattle tries to figure out how to improve its broadband situation, it ought to keep an eye on its sister to the south. Portland is getting hot and heavy with Google, which may bring its fast fiber broadband service to the Rose City as early as 2015.

Portland recently reached a preliminary franchise agreement with the online giant and will begin public deliberations on the deal in May, according to The Oregonian.

Google announced in February that it plans to bring its fast-fiber broadband and cable-TV service to Portland and five surrounding cities. But first Portland and the neighboring cities must sort through the same neighborhood issues that Seattle now faces with CenturyLink and other broadband providers demanding special treatment and more access to public property.

Google may be an exciting newcomer to the telecom business but in its dealings with cities, it acts like a crusty old player in the industry. In Portland, Google is twisting arms by offering its fast broadband in return for city handouts, just as CenturyLink is doing in Seattle.

Cities are pushovers when it comes to broadband. The way politicians talk about it, you’d think their constituents were stuck in the dark ages and broadband was as important as the fire department.

Google Fiber is appealing and has plenty of cheerleaders on social media and at City Hall. Yet Google is a mixed blessing. The majority of residents in any city would probably rather get broadband service from a public utility that’s accountable to them, instead of from a fairly opaque company that makes its money delivering hypertargeted advertising.

Privacy concerns are offset by the prospect of a wealthy company stepping in to help address a complicated infrastructure challenge. Still it’s a business, not a gift, and city officials should push to make sure all of their residents benefit from the deals they make.

[Commentary] Seattle likely will get somewhat faster broadband in the coming year from CenturyLink, but some homeowners may not cheer the upgrade.

In one of his first moves on the technology front, the city’s new mayor has pledged to grant a longstanding wish of CenturyLink and make it easier for the company to place refrigerator-like utility cabinets on the parking strips in front of people’s homes. This purportedly will improve broadband speeds, though Mayor Ed Murray doesn’t have any guarantee that will happen.

I hate to question this faint signal of progress coming from City Hall, where a series of mayors have spent more than a decade hemming and hawing about how to improve residential-broadband service. But starting out with a giveaway to CenturyLink may pit the phone company against neighborhoods. Worst of all, it could create a controversy that slows down Mayor Murray’s more ambitious technology vision -- to revive plans for a citywide, city-owned broadband network that would offer an alternative to CenturyLink, Comcast and other entrenched providers.

[Commentary] Watch what the Federal Communications Commission does. For the first time in years, the panel should move to slow down media consolidation by closing a loophole that has allowed a handful of the nation’s largest broadcasters to skirt laws limiting station ownership.

No surprise, the broadcast industry is vehemently opposed to ending the practice of Joint Sales Agreements, but this sort of business tactic (covered in-depth by The Wall Street Journal) has diminished local ownership and allowed a small number of big players to control the flow of information over huge swaths of the country.

Local television news is at risk of becoming more about profits for out-of-town corporate bosses than about informing communities with quality news. Why should viewers care about any of this? The fewer owners there are in broadcast news, the fewer perspectives will be featured on the public airwaves. Some argue it makes business sense for the industry to combine operations to be more efficient. But at what cost? With consolidation, women and minority ownership has dropped.

On the issue of curbing JSAs, FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler is right. The FCC should close the loophole. That might lead to more truly diverse ownership and programming.