Former FCC chairman: Deregulation is a right-wing power grab

Reed Hundt says Monday's historic vote was "the culmination of the attack by the right on the media."

By Eric Boehlert

May 31, 2003 | In a historic session on the future of the U.S. news media, Republicans on the Federal Communications Commission voted Monday to ease long-standing rules so that more and more of the nation's newspapers and broadcast stations can be concentrated in fewer and fewer hands.

Underlying that agenda, Clinton-era FCC chairman Reed Hundt saw something more primal unfolding: an extraordinary conservative power grab that could shape the political landscape for generations.

For all the philosophical conflict over diversity in the media and the efficiency of the free market, Hunt told Salon, the vote is really about an alliance of interests between the political right and the corporate media. "Conservatives," he said, "hope ... that the major media will be their friends."

In today's political and media environment, there's plenty of evidence that those hopes will come true. ABC News recently appointed conservative commentator John Stossel to co-host its prime-time magazine "20/20." "These are conservative times ..." an ABC source told TV Guide. "The network wants somebody to match the times."

The FCC's two Democrats strongly opposed the deregulation measure that's been pushed by current FCC chairman Michael Powell, a close ally of the Bush White House, and public response to the proposal has been heavily opposed. But Hundt's blunt critique is all the more striking because he is an establishment lawyer thoroughly versed in the diplomatic niceties of high government office. He attended prep school with Al Gore and law school with Bill Clinton and served as FCC chairman under Clinton from 1993 to 1997. He is now a senior advisor at McKinsey and Co., the international consulting firm.

The FCC has long had rules regulating media ownership, based on the assumption that the number of broadcast frequencies is limited. The regulations were designed to ensure that radio and television stations remained diverse, independent voices and could withstand predatory conglomerates. But on Monday the FCC dumped those rules.

A company like the News Corp., owned by conservative world-media mogul Rupert Murdoch, will be able to hold newspapers, television stations and radio stations in the same market. Conglomerates such as the News Corp. (Fox TV, Fox News, Fox Sports, 20th Century Fox Studio, the New York Post, HarperCollins Publishers) and Viacom (CBS, MTV, Paramount Studios and the Infinity radio network) would be allowed to snatch up more and more local TV affiliate stations nationwide. And, critics say, small and medium-size broadcast companies and newspaper publishers will likely be swallowed up by bigger competitors.

In the telephone interview Wednesday, Hundt warned that the massive media deregulation will exacerbate the dangerously close relationship that's emerged between sprawling U.S. media companies and the government. "If Dwight Eisenhower were alive today," he said, "he'd be warning us about the dangers of the military-industry-media complex."

During Hundt's term as FCC chairman, the landmark Telecommunications Act of 1996 was passed. As originally drafted by Republicans in Congress, the legislation would have virtually stripped away all media-ownership limits. In the end, Clinton signed into law a compromise version that allowed only the radio industry to be deregulated.

At the time, Hundt was among the few to warn of the consequences. The new laws would allow "a few companies to buy all the radio licenses in the country," he said then. "I don't believe that's good for this industry or for this country."

His words proved prophetic. Since the law's passage, Clear Channel Communications, which in 1995 owned approximately 40 radio stations, has expanded to approximately 1,200 outlets, nearly 1,000 more than its closest competitor. Together with Viacom-owned Infinity Broadcasting, it dominates an industry once made up of hundreds of competitors. Few people -- other than employees of Clear Channel and Viacom -- would suggest that radio as a source of news, information or entertainment has improved in any way because of consolidation. In fact, most would say it's become noticeably worse.

And that, Hundt told Salon, plays directly into conservatives' agenda.

What do you think is behind the push for deregulation?

I think that fundamentally what we have here is a political debate. And let's just say that the [Bush] administration does not think that the big winners in the media consolidation game will be either the New York Times or the Washington Post.

Who will be the big winners?

Well, the conservative movement owns the FCC, the courts, Congress, the White House.

So you think that politics is more than a small part of what's going on?

Politics is always the greater part of all antitrust, and the debate now is, How do you apply antitrust to the media, which traditionally has been the job of the FCC? So it's not surprising that politics is the greatest single shaping influence on the outcome here.

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