Not so fast on FCC changes

Give Kevin Martin credit - not only does the guy orchestrate far-reaching plans to overhaul the nation's communications industries, but he does it on two separate votes with two separate sets of supporters. In one 3-to-2 vote, he sided with the agency’s two other Republicans to relax the newspaper-broadcast cross-ownership rules in the 20 largest markets. That could have been a huge deal in L.A., where Tribune owns both the LAT and KTLA, but earlier this month the company was granted a waiver to maintain its ownership of the two properties. In today’s second 3-to-2 vote, Martin joined with the two Democratic commissioners in effectively imposing growth limits on Comcast, the nation’s largest cable company. Here's the backstory from the NYT:

Over the last year, the commission has approved a series of proposals over the objections of the cable television industry, including one last December to force municipalities to accelerate the local approval process for the telephone companies to offer video services in new markets. Another one last October struck down thousands of contracts that gave individual cable companies exclusive rights to provide service to an apartment building. Consumer groups, which have long pushed for tighter cable television regulation, were split over the media ownership rules. Some were relieved that it did not go nearly as far as they had feared and that Mr. Martin tightened a loophole by making it more difficult for companies to get exemptions from the rules in smaller markets. Other groups were critical because they said the rule could open the door to further consolidation and a decline in the diversity of voices on the airwaves.

Well, you know where this is going - to Congress and the courts. "Unfortunately, unless Congress intercedes, we're going to have to go back to court to make sure the public isn't harmed by this ill-advised action," Andrew Jay Schwartzman, president of a public-interest law firm, told the LAT. Three years ago, a federal appeals panel struck down deregulatory measures proposed by Martin’s predecessor, Michael K. Powell, including one that loosened the cross-ownership rules. The court said that the agency had the authority to relax the rules.