Breaking Up Combines

The Justice Department last week made a proposition that will upset some big owners of newspapers and television stations. In a major policy statement, it urged the Federal Communications Commission to ban single ownership of daily papers and TV stations in the same city (there are now an estimated 83 such combinations in 78 cities). The department's antitrust division recommended that dual owners be given from five to eight years to unload one property or the other; it suggested that owners be allowed to trade papers or stations with those in other cities, a move that would allow them to remain in both businesses while cutting back their power in any one community.

Department lawyers point to studies showing that ad rates charged by affiliated papers and TV stations run 10% to 15% higher than those demanded when papers and stations are competing for dollars. The trustbusters say that their plan would encourage more independent news coverage; they also believe it could eliminate a "subtle pressure on editors and reporters" in single-ownership situations "that may be nothing more sinister than an awareness by ambitious press and broadcast journalists that the road to promotion does not lie with antagonizing the publisher or owner."

The department has already moved to contest license renewals of TV stations that are owned by companies that also have papers in Des Moines, St. Louis, Milwaukee, Minneapolis and Topeka, and it plans to challenge renewals in other markets as well. Joint owners are digging in on the argument that the Justice proposal would, as Broadcast magazine put it, "add few new public voices at the exorbitant price of wholesale dislocation in media operations." How the FCC will respond, after having dodged the issue for six years, remains to be seen.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so viewer discretion is required.