On The Media

BOB GARFIELD: From WNYC in New York, this is NPR's On the Media. I'm Bob Garfield.

BROOKE GLADSTONE: And I'm Brooke Gladstone. Last week came the announcement that Michael Powell, lightning-rod chairman of the Federal Communications Commission for the past four years, would be leaving the FCC. Bob takes a look back at his stormy tenure.

BOB GARFIELD: Well, the do not call list was wildly popular. In teaming up with the Federal Trade Commission to crack down on telemarketers, FCC Chairman Michael Powell can look back to at least one chapter of his leadership not clouded by controversy, ideology and widespread outrage. On his watch, the FCC also mandated fully-digital TV broadcasts by 2007, allowed consumers to easily switch mobile phone carriers without changing phone numbers, and made it easier for blind people to enjoy TV programs via a special narration sound track. Otherwise, he will be remembered chiefly for two things. The first is content regulation in the form of fines against local and national broadcasters for on-air indecency. His most notorious target, radio host Howard Stern, self-described martyr to free speech. [TAPE PLAYS]

HOWARD STERN: What was the name of Mel Gibson's new movie?

WOMEN: The Passion of the Christ.

HOWARD STERN: The Passion of the Stern. Special appearance by Yucko the Clown. [LAUGHTER] Something like that. Michael Powell as Pontius Pilate. [TAPE ENDS]

BOB GARFIELD: Some believe the FCC has a mandate to keep public airwaves free of indecent content - that it has to draw the line somewhere - say, at Janet Jackson's exposed nipple. Others see the fines as a clear case of government censorship. Stern, they said, was a sacrificial lamb- [LAMB BLEATING] an offering to the red states to prove the Bush White House was safeguarding their family values. Then came fines to the Clear Channel stations carrying shock jock Bubba the Love Sponge, [LAMB BLEATING] CBS, for the infamous Super Bowl wardrobe malfunction, [LAMB BLEATING] and, most recently, to Fox Broadcasting for a raunchy bachelor party sequence in the reality show Married by America. [LOUD LAMB BLEATING] This has had its effect. Broadcasters from coast to coast - NPR included - are cowering in fear of what joke or casual remark might result in an onerous fine. As it turned out, Stern & Company were not the last lambs led to slaughter - but more on that later. First, the other historical aspect of the Michael Powell regime - not the de facto regulation of content, but the de-regulation of ownership. In June, 2003, the Powell FCC changed rules to allow such gargantuan media companies as Viacom, Clear Channel and Rupert Murdoch's News Corps to own more stations and command more audience than ever before. Here's Powell in 2003 on PBS's Newshour. [TAPE PLAYS]

MICHAEL POWELL: You know, we, we've heard the statistic over and over in this debate that five companies control everything, own everything, monopolize everything. Those are real poor uses of words, because they actually own only about 25 percent of all the channels, but they happen to command 80 percent of the viewership. [TAPE ENDS]

BOB GARFIELD: Such rationalizations for de-regulation led to accusations that Powell was a handmaiden to the media oligarchs. In his rare public statements, Powell himself claimed to be a defender of consumer choice. Either way, he was a loyal and surprisingly visible agent for President Bush's laissez-faire philosophy. But who would have guessed that, in service of a cause as arcane as media consolidation, hitherto the subject matter of academics, public interest Cassandras and inside-the-Beltway policy wonks, Powell would run into such a buzz saw. When the rule changes on ownership caps were announced, the chairman was sawed right in two. From 750,000 irate private citizens, to unexpected quarters on the political right. Key congressional Republicans bridled, and no less a personage than New York Times columnist William Safire called the move a power grab by big media - the most controversial decision in FCC history. Safire should have seen it coming. One of Powell's first acts as chairman was to approve 62 pending radio station acquisitions to now-gigantic station combines Clear Channel and Cumulus Media. In 2002, the commission killed provisions requiring broadband providers to lease their cable and fiber lines, built out under monopoly protections, to other providers. And in the run up to the infamous TV ownership rule change itself, Powell was accused of attempting to stifle debate. Democratic FCC Commissioner Michael J. Copps was so frustrated, he was forced to schedule his own public hearings. [TAPE PLAYS]

MICHAEL J. COPPS: I think there's a feeling amongst some at the commission that if you do a few econometric studies and a few professional studies that you can proceed and base your decision on that, and that going out to specific media markets does not add a lot to the public record. I disagree vehemently with that. [TAPE ENDS]

BOB GARFIELD: Powell did not attend those hearings, but many citizens did, and when the rule changes were finally promulgated six months later, so many citizens emailed in protest that they crashed the FCC's server. This led to a frenzy on Capitol Hill, where the Republican-controlled House voted 400 to 21 to block the rules implementation. A federal court then overturned the rule as beyond the commission's statutory authority. Media companies have filed an appeal with the Supreme Court, which has yet to decide on whether it will consider the case. And therein the great irony of Michael Powell's tenure. His departure was announced one week ago. Six days later, the White House acknowledged that it will not defend the FCC's proposed rule before the high court, dramatically diminishing the likelihood that the case will be reviewed. Probably the most pivotal ruling on media consolidation was in the court of public opinion - an angry throng crying for blood. Bush remains in the White House; Rupert Murdoch is still rich; and Michael Powell? [LAMB INSISTENTLY BLEATING]