FCC’s Media Ownership Rules Proceedings On Pause

The Federal Communications Commission's proceeding on media ownership rules is now officially on hold pending an impact study on how cross-ownership affects minority ownership.

It could be late spring, even summer, before the proceeding, already two years behind schedule, starts rolling again.

According to a story at adweek.com, FCC chairman Julius Genachowski made the decision to delay the proceeding Tuesday, a day after the Minority Media and Telecommunications Council in a filing with the agency, offered to conduct and pay for the independent study.

"This is a big day for civil rights," said David Honig, the executive director for the MMTC. "We knew the FCC would consider our request, but we didn't think they would act so fast."

The study may have been just what Genachowski needed to get out from under, or at least delay, a proceeding that was going nowhere. From the moment Genachowski proposed the draft order in November, he found himself caught in a tug of war between the two Democratic commissioners that wanted a study on how the changes might impact minorities and the two GOP commissioners that wanted looser rules. And with media ownership rules a constant magnet for litigation, the MMTC's request made a lot of sense.

The draft order called for the FCC to lift the ban on owning a newspaper and radio station in a market, but keep the cross-ownership ban on newspaper and TV outside the top 20 markets and the ownership cap on the number of TV and radio stations.

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