- Television licenses are extended from the 3-year period mandated by the FCC's charter rules to 5 years. Longer license periods likely make TV stations less responsive to its viewers

- Ownership rules are relaxed. The maximum number of stations that one corporation could own is increased from 7 stations to 12 stations.

- License renewals are reduced from a detailed inquiry about how a station served the public interest to a 5-question application (the "post-card renewal" process).

"Government is not the solution to our problem; government is the problem."

from President Ronald Reagan's Inaugural Address

January 20th, 1980

- Guidelines for minimum amounts of non-entertainment content are eliminated.

- Guidelines limiting the maximum amount of advertising per hour are eliminated, with predictable results.

1996

Feb 8

President Clinton signs the Telecommunications Act of 1996, supposedly intended to efficiently re-allocate the broadcast airwaves to make room for digital broadcast technologies. As noted by Senator John McCain, this act was "written by [the broadcast] lobbyists". It helps the industry in several ways:

- The 40-station cap on radio ownership is eliminated; and within five years, Clear Channel Communications acquires over 1200 stations in all 50 states. They also the dominant owner of stations in the Cedar Rapids area: WMT-FM, KMJM-AM, WMT-AM, KKRQ-FM, and KXIC. (The next largest owner of Cedar Rapids stations is Cumulus, which happens to be second largest owner in the U.S.).

- The 1996 Act also increased the TV broadcast license period from 5 years to 8 years. The license period is now over 2.5 times longer than what it used to be, making stations even less responsive to the public

- The 1996 Act gives away an FCC-estimated $40 billion dollars of broadcast spectrum to corporate broadcasters. The airwaves that belong to the public are given, free, to companies so that they can turn around and sell them back, to other users! Guess who ends up footing the final bill?

2002

Sept 7

through

Sept 9

The FCC, under head commissioner Michael Powell, announces on a Saturday that it will review ownership rules. The major McNews media players -- ABC, CBS, Fox, and NBC -- all neglect to mention this in their news programs, with one exception: On September 9th, on the program ABC World News This Morning, a 60-word story is announced at 4:40 in the morning. Here it the entire report, representing all the reporting of all the networks. Note how they also had to resort to using a newspaper report as the source of the information...

"Government regulators reportedly are likely to allow the country's media giants to get even bigger. THE NEW YORK TIMES says the Federal Communications Commission is reviewing media ownership rules this week. Among other things, current rules prevent a newspaper from owning a TV station in the same city or a network from owning stations that serve more than 35 percent of the national market."

2003

Feb 27

The FCC holds its only official public hearing on its proposed ownership deregulation plans. Meanwhile, in the months prior to their June 2003 ruling, FCC members meet with broadcast lobbyists over 70 times.

Three Republican Senators send a letter to Michael Powell, requesting that he make the rule-rewrite process more open to the public, as the proposed changes may have very dramatic effects.

- The five FCC Commisioners, by a 3-to-2 party line vote, rule to relax ownership regulations so that any one broadcast corporation can own enough stations to reach 45% percent of all viewers (up from the 35% that had been maintained since the beginning of FCC regulations). It also loosens "cross-media" ownership restrictions.

- This ruling is passed is in spite of the fact that, as Commissioner Michael Copps noted, that 99% of all citizen input on the matter was against this rule change

- It is worth noting that two of the Big Five -- Viacom and News Corporation -- were already in violation of the 35% cap, as they held 39% market shares. It almost seems as if they knew the law would change in their favor.

Dec

through

2004

Jan

Republican congressional leaders make a last-minute compromise with President Bush and, after all, increase the ownership caps to 39%, allowing Viacom and News Corp. to keep all stations that, prior to the June 2nd ruling, was over the legal limit. This change is embedded within a omnibus spending bill, which passes both houses during this period. The rule of law is again maintained, with the help of broadcast lobbyists.

Comment:

Loss of The Fairness Doctrine and caps on ownership paved the way for such abuses as Sinclair Broadcast Group's airing of The Point over its 61 stations during the local news. For example, by claiming that their anti-Kerry film Stolen Honor is "news" and not political opinion, Sinclair argued that they need not provide Kerry with equal time for his political messages. Similarly, Mark Hyman can rail against the "Angry Left" on his program "The Point" without providing equal time to other viewpoints.

Note on data sources: Most of the information in this time line was obtained from a study conducted by the investigative television show, Now, which is aired on PBS stations (www.pbs.org/now/). Other information, regarding the FCC, was obtained from the FCC's website,The Museum of Broadcast Communications (www.museum.tv), and The New America Foundation's March 2004 publication, "The Decline of Broadcasters’ Public Interest Obligations."