Tag: Michael Copps

Posted on By Patrick Maines

Progressives’ Anti-Merger Mania

The proposed merger between the cable systems of Charter Communications, Time Warner Cable, and Bright House Networks has brought out the usual poseurs in opposition.  I speak, of course, of such as Common Cause, Consumers Union, and Public Knowledge (all of which are wrong in their usual and tiresome way, but not certifiable), and their more extreme kin, Media Alliance and Free Press.

As it happens, there exists a bridge between these armies of progressivism in the person of former FCC commissioner Michael Copps.  Since leaving the FCC, Copps has flocked to the aid of those organizations he favored when he was a commissioner.  So it is that the gentleman is now on the board of Free Press and a “special adviser” to Common Cause.

Which, of course, is why it’s important to know the kinds of things he’s saying about the merger.  Writing in Common Dreams (“Breaking News and Views for the Progressive Community”), Copps relieves himself of opinions like these:

This merger would create a new Comcast – a national cable giant with the ability and the incentive to thwart competition, diversity, and consumer choice….  >> Read More

The opinions expressed above are those of the writer and not of The Media Institute, its Board, contributors, or advisory councils.  The full version of this article appeared in The Hill on Feb. 9, 2016.

Posted on By Patrick Maines

Net Neutrality: Fast Lanes and the Usual Suspects

You can sometimes judge the quality of a thing by those who oppose it.  In the case of FCC Chairman Wheeler’s plan to allow the sale of “fast lanes” by Internet service providers, we have the usual suspects.

There is, for instance, Rep. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), about whom it’s impossible to say a single flattering thing, and organizations like Public Knowledge, Common Cause, and Free Press, whose role, these days, is to be the routinely embarrassing coiners of nonsensical slogans like “Net Neutrality: The First Amendment of the Internet.”

So these, and more, have been roused to high dudgeon by a plan that would allow ISPs to give Internet content providers the opportunity to pay more for a speedier route to consumers.  (Oh no, not that!)

The Media Institute has spent a lot of time with “net neutrality,” and we were pleased that under former FCC chairman Genachowski the FCC adopted a “lite” form of it.  But we also said it was a solution in search of a problem, and that the only lasting effect of it would be to set a precedent for regulation of the theretofore unregulated Internet.

Still, judging by the negative reaction to the modest plan offered by Wheeler – a plan that was in direct response to a court order, and that reportedly keeps in place restrictions against all the kinds of dastardly things ISPs were falsely accused of planning to do – there’s a core of people who can’t get away from the “cause.”

One of the more flamboyant of the bunch is former FCC commissioner Michael Copps, who, on the subject, is reported to have relieved himself of this nugget: “If the Commission subverts the Open Internet by creating a fast lane for the 1 percent and slow lanes for the 99 percent, it would be an insult to both citizens and to the promise of the Net.”

Time will tell whether more people think it’s Wheeler’s plan, or Copps’s statement, which is the greater insult.

The opinions expressed above are those of the writer and not of The Media Institute, its Board, contributors, or advisory councils.

Posted on By Patrick Maines

Michael Copps’ Excellent Adventure

Even in a town filled to the gunwales with sagacious and selfless public servants (wink, wink), FCC Commissioner Michael Copps, now in his tenth and final year as such, stands out from the crowd.  Evidence of his colorful take on policy issues has been on display right from the beginning.

In 2001, for instance, in just his first months on the job, Copps issued statements condemning allegedly indecent radio comments by Howard Stern (September); the TV broadcast of a Victoria’s Secret program (November); and the airing of liquor advertising (December).

When he wasn’t condemning indecent language, scantily clad women, or Demon Rum, Copps was laying the groundwork for what would become his signature spiel: a four-part jeremiad that excoriates the current state of journalism (not enough “localism” or investigative reporting); blames this state of affairs on media consolidation; recommends more spending on public broadcasting; and decries what he sees as insufficient “public interest” obligations on the licensed media (and perhaps the unlicensed media as well).

Copps is not alone in holding such views, but there’s something about the way he presents them – especially now when the political, legal, and economic winds are blowing in a very different direction – that’s borderline amusing.  Where once his fire and brimstone suggested a kind of Elmer Gantry, it now seems rather like Elmer Fudd. (“I hate wabbits!”)

Who could forget, just five months before the 2008 presidential election, the speech that Copps gave to the so-called National Conference on Media Reform?  Organized annually by those wonderful “progressives” at Free Press, Copps never misses one of these things; they are, he says, his favorite place to be.

Anyhow, in June of 2008, the commissioner was practically giddy at the prospect of working that old time religion on the nation’s communications policies:

On a night like tonight almost anything seems possible, doesn’t it?  To tell you the truth, I feel like that a lot these days.  I know we can get this done.  We can climb into the bright uplands of real democracy.  Because as we change media, we change everything.  We empower 300 million Americans to deal with all those issues that Big Media has dumbed-down or just plain ignored at terrible cost to our democracy.  There is no real democracy without media democracy.

Never mind the risible imagery of the Free Press crowd, backpacks and all, climbing those “bright uplands,” or the pristine gimcrackery in the real democracy/media democracy linkage – what’s notable is the contrast between those remarks and a speech Copps gave just a week ago.

Speaking again to the National Conference on Media Reform (who else?), Copps let it all hang out:

I’m here because I’m more worried than ever about the state of America’s media and what it’s doing to our country….  For the consolidated owners of radio and TV, the license to broadcast became a license to despoil….

What we’re dealing with here is a bad case of Big Media substance abuse – and they just can’t break the habit.  These folks have no intention, even as the economy improves, of reopening shuttered newsrooms or rehiring laid-off reporters.  They might even fire more, just to prove to Wall Street that the bottom line still rules….

You and I knew all along that the realization of our dreams waited on a new era of reform in Washington.  Then the new era came and we all just knew that media reform was right around the corner.  Twenty-seven months later we are still waiting.  Waiting for even a down payment on media reform, like an honest-to-goodness broadcast license renewal process to replace the utterly ridiculous, no-questions-asked regime now in place.  Or some public interest guidelines to encourage broadcast news and diversity and localism.

Really, it’s almost enough to make a grown man cry.  All those uplands unclimbed!  And Big Media moguls, firing people left and right, just to prove something to Wall Street.  Hearing such stuff, you know that Copps earnestly believes he’s put his finger on the problem.  After all, what else could it be?

Still, there’s something a little otherworldly about the gentleman’s lament, as though he’s been just a bystander looking in.  For the past 10 years Michael Copps has been one of five commissioners at the FCC, even chairman for a while, and since 2009 he has been a member of the majority there.

So if now, as he’s on his way out the door, Copps feels that the FCC has foozled its play, perhaps he should consider pointing one of those accusatory fingers at himself.  Maybe the problem all along hasn’t been consolidation or avarice, maybe it’s been that what ails the media, and the way forward, are more complex than to be availing of the kind of nostrums Copps and Free Press have been peddling.

Maybe the problem is that the Internet has upset the business model of almost all of the “old media,” denying them, most importantly, the kind of ad revenue that has been their lifeblood.  Seen from this perspective, exhortations to deny the efficiencies of consolidation, or to require more stringent “public interest” obligations, or to recommend greater funding of public broadcasting are not just irrelevant, they’re appalling.

                                       
The opinions expressed above are those of the writer and not of The Media Institute, its Board, contributors, or advisory councils.

Posted on By Richard T. Kaplar

Dueling Philosophies on Minority Ownership

What happens when you invite the FCC’s two veteran commissioners to speak about the media at a Rainbow PUSH Coalition symposium?  When one of the commissioners is Michael Copps, and the other is Robert McDowell, you get two very different views of where things stand and how they could be improved, as we saw on Nov. 20.

Copps, a Democrat, is a long-time foe of large media companies.  So he uses phrases like “excessive media consolidation,” “big media run awry,” “tsunami of consolidation,” and the punchline: “Minorities have suffered greatly because of consolidation.”  

One of his proposals to “put some justice back into our ownership policies” would involve a “public interest licensing system for broadcasters.”  Copps would like the Commission to “go back to having some guidelines to make sure stations are consulting with their audiences on what kinds of programming people would like.”  But wait, I think we already have such a system.  It’s called “ratings.”

Copps also favors something called a “full file review,” which would have the Commission award certain broadcast licenses by considering an applicant’s “experiences in overcoming disadvantages,” including race and gender discrimination.  (This sounds like a lawsuit waiting to be filed, but that’s another story.)  In other words, Copps views the FCC as the referee in a fight between “big media” and the little guy, where the solution is a tight rein on ownership regulations.
    
Robert McDowell sees things differently.  For minorities to get ahead in broadcasting and other media, Republican McDowell is quite clear about what is needed: access to capital.  “An important priority for me in my three-and-a-half years on the Commission has been to help create a competitive environment that allows minority entrepreneurs and other new entrants a real opportunity to build viable communications businesses,” he told the Rainbow PUSH group.
    
McDowell noted that he enthusiastically supported the Commission’s 2007 Diversity Order, which contained nine measures to help small entrepreneurs acquire capital or use their financial resources more efficiently.  He has also called for a tax certificate program to help disadvantaged businesses.  
    
At the same time, McDowell is keenly aware of the unintended and hurtful consequences of regulations (of the sort favored by Copps) aimed at helping small, local media owners  – like a “localism” proposal to reinstate a 20-year-old rule requiring stations to be manned throughout their broadcast day (technology notwithstanding), or onerous “enhanced disclosure” requirements so complex that they could require the hiring of additional employees.   
    
In short: On the question of disadvantaged minorities, Copps sees the culprit as large media companies.  From his perspective, the FCC must be a strict regulator of media ownership.  McDowell sees the culprit as the lack of access to capital.  He would envision the FCC as a facilitator, creating policies to generate financial opportunities for entrepreneurs.
    
Whose view is more accurate and whose solution is more likely to succeed?  On both counts, my money is on McDowell.   

Posted on By Patrick Maines

Commissioner Michael Copps and Media Ownership

Owing to his earnest and mild-mannered (if intellectually scruffy) ways, FCC Commissioner Michael Copps has rarely inspired anger.  No matter how wrong-headed his views – and he’s been wrong about virtually everything for the whole of his time as a Commissioner – he’s been accorded that kind of tolerance that people bestow on those seen to be sincere and to mean well.

That’s about to change.  In the midst of the worst economy – and potentially fatal problems for that part of the economy occupied by American newspapers and broadcasters – Copps is saying and doing things that infuriate.

The most recent, and onerous, examples occurred just yesterday and today when, according to stories in Broadcasting & Cable, Copps demonstrated, yet again, how insulated he is from the world of fact and logic.

Presiding (alone) over an FCC workshop convened to hear the views of academics on the subject of media ownership on Monday, “Copps warned against putting too much stock in the doom and gloom scenarios about the health of TV and newspapers, suggesting that trying to ‘save’ the media should not translate to a lighter re-regulatory hand.”

Then today, at yet another workshop, Copps expressed the opinion (as reported by B&C) that “if the FCC can’t rejuvenate shuttered newsrooms, put the brakes on ‘mind-numbing "monoprogramming"’ and otherwise turn the tide … of consolidation, then ‘maybe those who want the spectrum back have the better of the argument after all.’”

And so there you have it.  The parlous state of the TV and newspaper industries, according to Michael Copps, is nothing to be worried about.  It’s just a rumor.  No need to lighten the regulatory load.  In fact, if broadcasters don’t start programming the way Copps would like, maybe we’ll just take their spectrum away from them.

The series of workshops in question have one more day to run. Plenty of time, in other words, for Copps to give us the benefit of even more of this stuff.

Posted on By Richard T. Kaplar

A Disappointing Delay on Cross Ownership

Since January we’ve heard a lot of talk about changing the way the government does business.  At the FCC, however, it looks like it’s still just talk.  When it comes to the newspaper-broadcast cross ownership rules, at least, the times … they definitely are NOT a-changin’.

This week the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit said it would put off a decision on whether to lift a stay on the FCC’s modest attempt to loosen the rules until after the Obama FCC has a chance to review the revisions.

This comes after acting FCC chairman Michael Copps announced that the Commission would no longer oppose a petition by activist groups to put the case on hold until the new FCC leadership was in place.  

Let’s add this up.  The usual suspects in the activist realm (Media Access Project, Free Press, United Church of Christ, etc.) try to stall a court action that might loosen the cross ownership rules.  They know that if they can stall until a Democratic-majority FCC is in place, the changes are as good as dead.  The acting FCC chairman, who favors that outcome, goes along with the idea.

So it’s business as usual at the FCC.  But we expected more from the federal judiciary.

The court’s decision was unfortunate.  The judges should have acted decisively and immediately to lift the stay – as a matter of principle.  The ban on cross ownership makes absolutely no sense, neither in this digital age, nor in this recession.  The ban should have been abolished in its entirety years ago.  Some relaxation now would at least be a step in the right direction.

As for the activist groups and the acting FCC leadership – shame on them.  Has nobody among them noticed that in recent months newspapers have been biting the dust at an increasing rate that is nothing short of alarming?

If these policy watchers and makers truly cared about the public interest and a diversity of media voices, as they purport to do, they would be doing everything possible to help newspapers survive.  

It’s true that the problems facing the newspaper industry go well beyond the scope of the newspaper-broadcast cross ownership rules.  And it’s true that repealing the rules will not, by itself, restore the industry to robust health.

But getting rid of the rules – or even relaxing them a bit as the previous FCC chairman had proposed – might just help a little around the edges.  And if even one newspaper were able to keep publishing as a result, wouldn’t the public interest be better served?

That would be a change we could believe in.