Samuelson is right. But the Pols won't listen.
The 'Big Media' Myth
By Robert J. Samuelson
Washington Post Op Ed
Our public debates often fly off into the wild blue yonder of fantasy. So it's been with the Federal Communications Commission's new media-ownership rules. We're told that unless the FCC's decision is reversed, it will worsen the menacing concentration of media power and that this will -- to exaggerate only slightly -- imperil free speech, the diversity of opinion and perhaps democracy itself. All this is more than overwrought; it misrepresents reality.
In the past 30 years media power has splintered dramatically; people have more choices than ever. Travel back to 1970. There were only three major TV networks (ABC, CBS, NBC); now, there's a fourth (Fox). Then, there was virtually no cable TV; now 68 percent of households have it. Then, FM radio was a backwater; now there are 5,892 FM stations, up from 2,196 in 1970. Then, there was only one national newspaper (the Wall Street Journal); now there are two more (USA Today and the New York Times).
If you don't like radio, you can listen to a Walkman or pop a CD in your car player; in 1970, people had only bulky stereo systems. The alternative to TV is the VCR (85 percent of households) or, increasingly, the DVD player. Then there's the Internet: everything from foreign news sites to chess to pornography.
The idea that "big media" has dangerously increased its control over our choices is absurd. Yet large parts of the public, including journalists and politicians, believe religiously in this myth. They confuse size with power. It's true that some gigantic media companies are getting even bigger at the expense of other media companies. But it's not true that their power is increasing at the public's expense.
Popular hostility toward big media stems partly from the growing competition (aka more "choice''), which creates winners and losers -- and losers complain. Liberals don't like the conservative talk shows, but younger viewers do. A June poll by the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press found that viewers from the ages of 18 to 29 approved of "hosts with strong opinions" by a 58 percent to 32 percent margin. Social conservatives despise what one recently called "the raw sewage, ultraviolence, graphic sex and raunchy language" of TV. But many viewers love it. Journalists detest the cost and profit pressures that result from stiff competition with other news and entertainment outlets.
It's the tyranny of the market: a triumph of popular tastes. Big media companies try to anticipate, shape and profit from these tastes. But media diversity frustrates any one company from imposing its views and values on an unwilling audience. People just click to another channel or cancel their subscription. The paradox is this: The explosion of choices means that almost everyone may be offended by something. A lot of this free-floating hostility has attached itself to the FCC ownership rules.
The backlash is easily exaggerated. In the Pew poll, 51 percent of respondents knew "nothing" of the rules; an additional 36 percent knew only "a little." The rules would permit any company to own television stations in areas with 45 percent of U.S. households, up from 35 percent now. The networks could buy more of their affiliate stations -- a step that, critics say, would jeopardize "local" control and content.
At best, that's questionable. Network programs already fill most of affiliates' hours. To keep local audiences, any owner must satisfy local demands, especially for news and weather programming. One FCC study showed that network-owned stations have more weekly local public-affairs programs than affiliates (22.8 hours vs. 18.5 hours). Many affiliates belong to major media firms. Broadcasting & Cable magazine reports that Tribune Co. owns 27 stations; Gannett, 22; Cox, 15; and The Washington Post Co., six. (The broadcast division of The Washington Post Co., whose shares I own, opposes the 45 percent rule.) Beyond the rhetoric, this fight is mostly a struggle for advantage between networks and affiliates. Even if the networks owned all their affiliates, most people's choices would barely change. It's unclear that any ownership limits are needed.
But the symbolic backlash against the FCC and big media does pose one hidden danger. For some U.S. households, over-the-air broadcasting is the only TV available, and its long-term survival is hardly ensured. Both cable and the Internet are eroding its audience. In 2002 cable programming had more prime-time viewers than broadcast programming for the first time (48 percent vs. 46 percent). Streaming video, now primitive, will improve; sooner or later -- certainly in the next 10 or 15 years -- many Web sites will be TV channels. If over-the-air broadcasting declines or disappears, the big losers will be the poor.
Broadcast TV will survive and flourish only if the networks remain profitable enough to bid for and provide competitive entertainment, sports and news programming. The industry's structure must give them a long-term stake in over-the-air broadcasting. Owning more TV stations is one possibility. If Congress prevents that, it may perversely hurt the very diversity and the people it's trying to protect.
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Clarification: In my last column, I reported that two government surveys of employment tell different stories. A survey of companies indicates that (through June) the number of jobs had dropped by 2.6 million since its peak in early 2001, while a survey of households showed a job loss of only 108,000 over a similar period. The actual job loss in the household survey was nearly 700,000, reflecting a complex statistical adjustment.
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