People's Democracy

The Media And The State In The US

C P Chandrasekhar

AMERICA’S media monopoly, which advocated the war in Iraq and helped influence international perceptions of its conduct, is set to increase its power. In a partisan 3 votes to two decision on June 2, the Federal Communications Commission has voted to substantially relax controls that limited, even if not prevented, the monopolisation of the US media. The early-June decision was indeed “monumental”, since it involves changes in three key areas: (i) It allows for greater TV monopoly over national viewership: while earlier, no single company could own television stations that reached more than 35 per cent of the nation’s viewers, now that cap has been relaxed to 45 per cent. It needs to be noted that this directly benefits two media majors, Viacom, which owns CBS, and News Corp., which owns Fox. Without this change they would have been required to sell properties, because each currently owns stations covering nearly 40 per cent of national viewers.

(ii) It permits a greater degree of consolidation in individual markets by diluting the Dual Network Rule: from a situation where one company could own two TV stations in the same market if only one is ranked in the market's top four and there were eight remaining separately owned stations after the merger, now that merger can take place if there are at least five stations in the market and in cases where there are 18 stations, one company can own three stations so long as only one is among the top four.

(iii) It allows for cross-ownership across media in individual markets undermining inter-media competition: earlier a company owning a daily newspaper could not own a television or a radio station in the same market, and a company owning a TV station could own only one, four or eight radio stations in the same market, depending on the number of “voices” (or the total number of TV, radio, newspaper and cable outlets). Now, however, “cross-ownership” bans in markets with nine or more TV stations have been eliminated. Even in markets with four to eight TV stations, a company can own one of following combinations: (a) a newspaper, a TV station and up to half of the maximum number of radio stations allowed in a market; (b) a newspaper and the maximum number of radio stations allowed in a market; or (c) two TV stations and the maximum number of radio stations allowed in a market.

CONCENTRATION IN US MEDIA

These changes have occurred in a market which is already monopolised, despite controls. Ted Turner, the creator of CNN, who till recently was chief of CNN after its merger with Time Warner (now AOL Time Warner), had declared a month ago that the US media was too concentrated, and that the big five groups in the broadcasting business (News Corp/Fox, AOL Time Warner/CNN, Disney Co/ABC, Viacom/CBS and General Electric/NBC), which control 99 per cent of what Americans see and hear, “don’t have the public’s interest at heart.” Turner is reported to have rued the fact “that the media is too concentrated … Too few people control too much, especially considering that I’m not one of them.”

This candid statement regarding the power of the US media is in keeping with much of what critical commentators such as Ben Bagdikian, Noam Chomsky, Edward Herman and Robert McChesney have been arguing for quite some time now. Writing in 1997, Bagdikian pointed to the fact that over the previous five years, a small number of private corporations had acquired unprecedented control over public communications power, including the news. This was disturbing since many of these entities were the prime or sole source of information to a section of the American public. In support he noted that: “Of the 1,500 daily newspapers in the country, 99 per cent are the only daily in their cities. O the 11,800 cable systems, all but a handful are monopolies in their cities.” A few corporations were acquiring a number of these and that trend, he argued, would accelerate in the aftermath of the passage of the Telecommunications Act of 1996, which liberalised rules regarding mergers and acquisitions. “At issue is not just a financial statistic,” he warned. “At issue is the possession of power to surround almost every man, woman and child in the county with controlled images and words, to socialise each new generation of Americans, to alter the political agenda of the country.”

The danger now is that this power of a few media corporations is likely to increase. Interesting this increased power to the media elbow has come when the US Federal Communications Commission (FCC) is being chaired, coincidentally, by Michael Powell son of US Secretary of State Colin Powell. This may be a true or unwitting reflection of the relationship between the state and the media in the US. Powell, who took charge of the FCC in January 2001, was known to be committed to relaxing controls on telecom and media ownership and favourably disposed to the big media corporations. His problem was that the FCC had four commissioners besides himself, two of whom are Democrat and two Republican. Thus, with the two Democrats (Michael Copps and Jonathan Adelstein) ranged against his proposals, the possibility of finding a consensus around his proposals was bleak

CONTROVERSIAL DEREGULATION

Deregulation of the media is also a controversial business, since there has been strong opposition to some of the changes that were being advocated from unions, trade associations, consumer activists, think tanks and academicians, who understandably fear that these would only increase the power of the media barons to manipulate public debate. Adelstein, one of the Democrats represented on the FCC, justified his vote against the decision by pointing to the overwhelming opposition to the rule changes expressed by consumer, labour, religious, civil rights, journalism and academic groups. He noted in particular the concerns stated by the more than 750,000 citizens who personally contacted the FCC to report their fears about media consolidation and monopoly.Immediately after the decision, the FCC received more than 500,000 e-mails and postcards opposing the changes, and temporarily shut down its voice-mail and e-mail systems because of the deluge of comments.

It should be obvious that given the past record of the big media players in the US, the relaxation of these regulations would set off a merger and acquisition wave which would concentrate power over the media even further. The opposition to deregulation is based on the twin dangers of lack of diversity and media manipulation. Common ownership can result in the same selectively chosen information and the same opinions being purveyed by different media outlets. That this does happen was acknowledged as far back as 1978 even by the Supreme Court which in FCC v National Citizens Committee for Broadcasting, argued: "It is unrealistic to expect true diversity from a commonly owned station-newspaper combination. The divergence of their viewpoints cannot be expected to be the same as if they were antagonistically run." If this lack of diversity is combined with an urge to manipulate the news, the effects would obviously be disastrous.

RELAXATION OF RULES

Critics point to the results of the last experiment with relaxation of rules to defend this apprehension. The 1996 Telecommunications Act had partly liberalised rules allowing media companies to acquire as many television stations as they wanted so long as their reach does not exceed 35 per cent of US households. The results were as expected.  At the moment, CBS owns twenty-one stations; ABC ten; NBC thirteen; and Fox thirty-three.

That Act also singled out radio for massive ownership deregulation. Since the passing of the Act Clear Channel Communications, the leading radio and concert conglomerate in the US has expanded from 40 stations to 1,225 stations. The net result is that there has been a 34 per cent decline in the number of radio station owners, a 90 per cent rise in advertising rates, evidence from artists that they are "shackled by the anti-competitive practices of the conglomerates”, and complaints of an increase in indecent broadcasts. As a result, even Michael Powell, who normally argues that media ownership rules do not reflect the realities of a modern media marketplace, had to admit before a Senate Commerce Committee hearing that he was "concerned about the concentration, particularly in radio."

If despite all this the June 2 decision has gone through it is because of the close link between the media and the state, which has only grown under the Bush administration. After the decision, Adelstein said: "Today's decision overrides their (the American people’s) better judgment. It instead relies on the reasoning of a handful of powerful media companies who have a vested financial interest. Those who stand to benefit by buying and selling the public airwaves won out over the public." This reflects not only the overall power of the media, but the corruption and conflict typical of American society. A study by the Centre for Public Integrity on the "close" relationship between FCC officials and the telecommunications and broadcasting industries they are supposed to be regulating is revealing. The centre’s examination of the travel records of FCC employees found that over the last eight years, commissioners and staff members have taken 2,500 trips costing 2.8 million dollars that were primarily paid for by firms in the telecommunications and broadcast industries. According to the study: "The top destination was Las Vegas, with 330 trips. Second was New Orleans, with 173 trips. And third was New York, with 102 trips." Other "popular" destinations were London (98 trips), San Francisco, Palm Springs, Buenos Aires and Beijing.

This is the kind of conflict of interest normally considered typical of the pharmaceutical industry, which showers gifts on the medical community and organises “conferences” for medical personnel and their families in exotic locations. But as Charles Lewis, the centre's executive director put it, the evidence "shows us just how close, how incestuous, the industry and its regulating agency are." Not surprisingly, one commentator argues, “the interests of ordinary men and women, who don't have the money or the entree to lobby the FCC and entertain its staffers,” are overlooked or just trampled upon.