Trent Lott, June 6, 2003

The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has voted in favor of rules allowing more concentrated media ownership in which newspapers can own radio stations, TV stations or vice versa within the same market area. I think the FCC made a mistake. I know Mississippians would be better served by less concentrated ownership, and I oppose these new rules.

Ever since my mother worked at a local radio station in Pascagoula I have interacted with the media. The nature of my job has enabled me to work with various forms of media from small weekly papers to huge mega-networks and newspaper chains. As your Senator I've had an up close view of the dramatic changes in the availability, delivery, content and composition of media for broadcast and print, and I've helped implement policies that contributed to these developments. This experience includes the watershed Telecommunications Act of 1996 which capped single-company ownership at 35 percent of national viewership.

However, the FCC's latest ruling would increase national viewership caps from 35 to 45 percent, and it would lift the current ban which prohibits single company ownership of a newspaper and TV station in the same local media market. Not surprisingly, some of the biggest proponents of scrapping the ban are huge media chains, including the metropolitan Washington, D.C. - based Gannett company, which already owns two of Mississippi's largest newspapers, including the Jackson Clarion-Ledger. Gannett has long been labeled by its critics as a company producing indistinguishable, cookie-cutter publications dictated by corporate formula, and I am among many Mississippians very uncomfortable with the prospect of this or any other huge super-paper chains extending their ownership into the broadcast sectors of their existing markets.This could starve out smaller, more locally driven broadcast or print alternatives, leaving readers, listeners or viewers with a diminished, degraded or less locally reflective product.

This is a question of fairness and access for both small media organizations and media consumers. Already in many cities throughout the country, big corporate-owned daily newspapers have a virtual monopoly on print advertising and the print news market. To extend that monolithic power into the much broader, more diverse and highly competitive broadcast spectrum is monopolistic. Mississippi is fortunate that most of our state's media outlets remain either locally owned, or owned by smaller, more regional chains which seem to have more sensitivity and knowledge of local needs and local people. Yet, Mississippi's largest and most influential print media in particular are no longer locally owned, but are part of huge deep-pocket corporations whose corporate structure, editorial agenda, hiring decisions and content are not always reflective of community values.

Thanks to input received from smaller broadcasters and newspaper owners in our state, I believe Mississippians are apprehensive of having too much media concentration with any single company. With too much concentration, companies no longer have to be competitive with rates or product. There would be less incentive to produce something fresh, something different, something priced reasonably or something that caters to another point of view. Already in some markets, advertisers and customers have no choice but to use one particular media outlet. Unlike in the retail or services sector, too often media advertisers and consumers cannot express themselves by channeling their dollar to a competitor, because there is no similar print or broadcast competitor. In some markets, this already limited or nonexistent choice will be reinforced or made worse by the FCC's latest rules.

Big is not bad, but this question involves publicly-owned broadcast airwaves, and an already troubling situation in which big national print chains in particular already have virtual monopolies in some places. Putting those two together doesn't seem wise. Expanding concentration of media ownership may be in the best interest of huge Washington or New York-based media giants, but it would not be in the best interest of Mississippi's smaller media owners or media consumers like you and me.

Trent Lott is a Republican senator from Mississippi.