Wiley: FCC Should Dump Outmoded Ownership Rules

Richard Wiley tells the Denver Post that when he was chairman of the FCC in 1975, he worried about newspapers dominating the TV industry. Now he supports lifting the rule that prohibits newspaper/broadcast cross-ownership in the same market.
“In the last several years, FCC decisions to retain various ownership rules have been reversed no fewer than five times due to a perceived failure to justify their continued existence,” he wrote in an opinion piece. “Judges, for example, have found the agency’s prohibition on cross-owned cable/television properties to be unsustainable.
“But other voices would urge the FCC to delay its ownership review, to maintain the status quo and even to reinstate outmoded and discarded restrictions. These voices are echoes from an era that is long past. Regulatory delay and decision-making that ignores the reality of the marketplace will neither withstand judicial review nor serve the public interest.”
Now is the time for the agency to act on media ownership, Wiley stated.