Copyright 2002 Boston Herald Inc.  
The Boston Herald
June 11, 2002 Tuesday ALL EDITIONS
SECTION: FINANCE; Pg. 039

LENGTH: 399 words

HEADLINE: Media ownership rules await change

BYLINE: By GREG GATLIN

BODY:
Newspaper industry insiders say rules that bar most companies from owning newspapers and broadcast stations in the same market could be lifted by early next year or sooner, despite a suggestion yesterday that the Federal Communications Commission will take longer to act.

FCC Chairman Michael Powell has said he wants to move carefully in relaxing federal media ownership limits that many in the industry have complained are onerous and outdated. Some have also complained the FCC's process is moving too slowly.

Yesterday, Powell reportedly told Bloomberg News that rule changes could be more than a year away.

"We're shooting for a pretty comprehensive solution in which the majority, if not all, of the major proceedings is done before the summer of 2003," Powell said.

An FCC spokesman said those comments referred to rules regarding cross-ownership of TV stations and newspapers, as well as other caps on audience reach, local TV station ownership and cable-broadcast cross-ownership.

"The chairman is referring to all the media ownership rules, including newspaper-broadcast cross-ownership," spokesman David Fisk said.

But others say the FCC has indicated that newspaper-broadcast rule changes would occur sooner than those affecting other ownership regulations, some of which have been the focus of court decisions. They say rules limiting newspaper-broadcast cross-ownership could be lifted by late this year, or early next.

The FCC said last September that it would consider lifting the cross-ownership ban affecting newspapers and broadcasters. The public-comment phase of changing the rules wrapped up in Febuary, said John Sturm, president of the Newspaper Association of America.

"I'm both hopeful and optimistic that this proceeding is being done on a separate and faster track, and will be completed sooner rather than later by the commission," Sturm said.

Sturm's group supports lifting the ban, and has argued that such limits are unfair to newspaper publishers trying to compete in an age of multimedia giants with broadcast, cable and Internet outlets.

Powell is also getting pressure from two powerful Republican congressmen,  Louisiana's W.J. "Billy" Tauzin, head of the House commerce committee, and Michigan's Fred Upton, who heads a subcommittee on telecommunications and the Internet. They sent Powell a letter urging him to repeal the rule.

LOAD-DATE: June 11, 2002