Local TV Ownership

The local television industry continued experience regulatory uncertainty in 2005. The media ownership issue was so divisive that the FCC shelved the issue for a long time; its members couldn’t even agree on a process to consider it (please see the 2005 Local TV Ownership report for a history of the ownership rules). In October 2005, it kicked off a much-delayed nationwide round of town hall meetings or with the general public on possible solutions to the issue, which it planned to follow up with the court-ordered review of its rules in early 2006.

Some of the delay can be attributed to the FCC. The FCC is governed by five commissioners, three from the president’s party and two from the opposition party. They are confirmed by the Senate for 5-year terms, and the president appoints one of them as the chairperson. Nowadays that means that on any bill, the Republicans have the advantage of a 3-2 vote. However, this majority has been missing for some time at the FCC.

Republican Kevin Martin, commissioner since 2001, moved up to succeed Michael Powell as chairman when Powell left the FCC in March 2005.9 The resulting vacancy left the FCC one member short — and thus split for most of the year with Martin and Kathleen Abernathy on the Republican side facing the Democrats Michael Copps and John Adelstein. The vacant Republican spot was not filled until November 2005, when Deborah Tate was nominated by the President. But Abernathy’s term expired the same month, perpetuating the split. In February 2006, attorney Robert McDowell was nominated to fill the GOP seat left vacant by Abernathy.

All the shuffling suggested that new ownership rules were to emerge before the 2006 ended, but it was also possible that Martin’s staff was already working on a plan behind the scenes that would be presented as a fait accompli as soon as all three Republican commissioners were aboard. The FCC is also expected to take up several hot-button issues, including indecency on broadcast television and advanced communications services.

The Sinclair Broadcast Group, which created a lot of publicity during the 2004 presidential campaign for its plan to air an anti-John Kerry documentary on its stations, became much less of a story in 2005. The group, among the 10 largest in local television, announced in October 2004 that it would show the documentary “Stolen Honor," widely considered so controversial that advertisers were pulling ads and investors were complaining. Sinclair modified its plan, broadcasting instead a program about the documentary’s allegations. Activists had said they would challenge Sinclair’s station licenses as they come up for renewal before the FCC, but in 2005 at least, there were no media reports of any new developments.Sinclair made news in 2005 and early 2006 when it closed down three local news operations (with plans for more).