Jon E. Dougherty, NewsMax.com
Monday, Aug. 23, 2004

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  That's according to media mogul Ted Turner, founder of CNN.

He says the little guy can't catch a break in today's media world.

In an article for Washington Monthly’s July/August edition, Turner says his style of risk-taking and independence isn't possible in today's media world. He says people like him and rival Rupert Murdoch, owner of the Fox empire, which includes newspapers like the New York Post, can't duplicate their earlier success in building their media kingdoms one brick (or station) at a time, from the ground up.

Advocates of the current system point to the internet as blossoming a new wave of media freedom.

Not really, argues Turner.

“The top 20 internet news sites are owned by the same media conglomerates that control the broadcast and cable networks. Sure a hundred person choir gives you a choice of voices, but they’re all singing the same song.”

Why can’t the free market break up the big media cartel?

"It's not that there aren't entrepreneurs eager to make their names and fortunes in broadcasting if given the chance," Turner writes. "If nothing else, the 1990s dot-com boom showed that the spirit of entrepreneurship is alive and well in America, with plenty of investors willing to put real money into new media ventures. The difference is that Washington has changed the rules of the game."

New Rules

The Federal Communications Commission (FCC), the federal government's media regulatory agency, recently changed its rules governing the ownership of newspapers, television and radio stations.

FCC Chairman Michael Powell said the changes were necessary because the old rules, which capped media ownership in local markets, were outdated in the world now dominated by the Internet and 200-channel cable television.

On June 2, the commission voted 3-2 to approve "a sweeping relaxation of media ownership rules . . . that would let the nation's TV and newspaper conglomerates become even bigger," USA Today reported.

The relaxation of the rules means fewer people will be able to own and control most of what people read, hear and see, critics like Turner charge. To back up his claim, Turner recounts some history and cites some examples.

He got his start in television 35 years ago, buying a UHF television station in Atlanta that was losing $50,000 a month. That station later became today's Turner Broadcasting Superstation.

Shortly thereafter, Turner moved to acquire another UHF station in Charlotte, N.C., which was hemorrhaging worse than the Atlanta station. He said his accountant quit in protest, and the company's board vetoed the deal. Determined, Turner mortgaged his home to gain enough capital to buy the station himself. He sold it 10 years later, giving him the funds to start the Cable News Network, now more popularly known by its acronym, CNN.

Helping him in his early television days were Congress and the FCC. Backed by legislators who understood the nature of competition and the logic behind limiting the reach of the big three networks – ABC, NBC and CBS – Washington set aside the UHF spectrum for independents while requiring televisions to be manufactured with both VHF and UHF reception capabilities.

'That Was Then'

By 1972, Turner wrote, "the FCC ruled that cable TV operators could import distant signals. That's how we were able to beam our Atlanta station to homes throughout the South. Five years later, with the help of an RCA satellite, we were sending our signal across the nation, and the Superstation was born." But, he cautions, "that was then."

Today, because of ever-loosening FCC ownership rules, the very thing Turner and other critics feared is coming true. A few big conglomerates are buying up the available media outlets at an alarming pace.

"To get a flavor of how consolidated the industry has become, consider this: In 1990, the major broadcast networks--ABC, CBS, NBC, and Fox--fully or partially owned just 12.5 percent of the new series they aired," Turner wrote. "By 2000, it was 56.3 percent. Just two years later, it had surged to 77.5 percent."

The new rules have created an environment hostile to independents, says Turner, because they make it easier for conglomerates to glom onto more independents or force them out of business altogether. "…Instead of balancing the rules to give independent broadcasters a fair chance in the market, Washington continues to tilt the playing field to favor the biggest players," he writes.

Consolidation Complaints

The FCC's Powell has called the most recent changes "modest," but Commissioner Michael Copps, a Democrat, called the ruling "the latest, most radical step in a 20-year history of undermining the public interest." USA Today reported.

Also, Gene Kimmelman of Consumers Union told the paper the FCC's decision "means less competition for stories, lazier journalism and fewer independent voices essential to democracy."

But others, like Rep. Billy Tauzin, R-La., chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, say the FCC has "taken a big step toward removing the regulatory muzzle from American broadcasters." He supports the rule changes, as did the White House.

Still, the battle over the new rules didn't end there. A month later, in July, the House overwhelmingly approved a measure that would reverse the FCC's decision. The Senate had already passed its own version of a repeal.

"The vote, which also was a defeat for House Republican leaders who support the relaxation of media ownership rules, could block media titans such as Viacom and News Corp. from owning TV stations reaching more than 35 percent of all U.S. households," the San Francisco Chronicle reported. The FCC's rules, the paper said, "had raised the limit to 45 percent."

In June, Turner said, the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals threw out some of the FCC's rule, like allowing corporations to own more television and radio stations in a single market. But the court let stand some rules, such as one permitting a corporation to own a TV station and a newspaper in the same market.

Wanted: Innovation

Turner acknowledges large media corporations do play an important part in the delivery of information. And other media experts have said providing coverage – especially overseas coverage and coverage from war zones, etc. – is an expensive endeavor that requires a company have deep pockets.

Despite these advantages, small firms are needed too, argues Turner, in order to keep innovation alive and new ideas flowing.

"They are independent thinkers. They know they can't compete by imitating the big guys –they have to innovate, so they're less obsessed with earnings than they are with ideas," he says.

All too often, however, big companies become "sluggish oligopolies" that tend to focus more on profit than innovation. Providing local coverage can even be an expensive venture, so to conserve resources big corporate media firms often turn to cheaper vanilla, one-size-fits-all national coverage.

"Unless we have a climate that will allow more independent media companies to survive, a dangerously high percentage of what we see – and what we don't see – will be shaped by the profit motives and political interests of large, publicly traded conglomerates," Turner says.

Though consolidation is good for business and makes sense for corporations, Turner says too much merging of the media will ultimately be bad for society. "…It's like over-fishing the oceans," he writes, in terms of the impact all of these mergers will eventually have on our society and culture. "When the independent businesses are gone, where will the new ideas come from?"

Own It All

The FCC's Powell says the new rule changes won't make big conglomerates even bigger. In justifying the new rules earlier this summer, he said even the biggest media firms owned a small fraction of the 1,340 commercial stations nationwide -- just 2.9 percent for Viacom, 2.8 percent Fox, 2.2 percent for NBC and 0.8 percent for ABC, according to the San Francisco Chronicle.

Powell said increasing ownership limits "would allow companies that are over the 35 percent cap to keep just a few stations, adding up to about half a percent of the market," the paper said.

In a statement, Powell reasoned, "Our democracy is strong. It is not threatened by half a percent."

But Turner, who has years of experience building his own company, offers a different perspective of today's media playing field.

He says if a company doesn't own everything "up and down the media chain," it can't survive.

"Today, the only way for media companies to survive is to own everything up and down the media chain – from broadcast and cable networks to the sitcoms, movies, and news broadcasts you see on those stations; to the production studios that make them; to the cable, satellite, and broadcast systems that bring the programs to your television set; to the Web sites you visit to read about those programs; to the way you log on to the Internet to view those pages," he wrote.

Cooperating to Curb Competition

Interestingly, Turner points out, the biggest media corporations do billions of dollars worth of business with each other every year.

They don't exactly compete with each other, he explains, "they cooperate to inhibit competition."

"You and I have both felt the impact. I felt it in 1981, when CBS, NBC, and ABC all came together to try to keep CNN from covering the White House," Turner said. "You've felt the impact over the past two years, as you saw little news from ABC, CBS, NBC, MSNBC, Fox, or CNN on the FCC's actions."

Conservatives have complained about this phenomenon for years. They have said the liberal bias of most major news organizations (that includes CNN) have worked in near-unison to kill a number of major stories about favored political figures.

For example, according to the Media Research Center, a conservative group that, among other things, monitors the liberal bias of the major news, most big networks have all but ignored charges by a group of Navy swift boat veterans who say Democratic presidential contender John Kerry "greatly exaggerated and/or made up his exploits in Vietnam."

The networks all but ignored the group – Swift Boat Veterans for the Truth – when they leveled their charges May 4, as well as the contents of an ensuing television ad released in August featuring quoting a number of vets familiar with Kerry and his service disputing claims the Massachusetts senator has made during his presidential bid.

MRC says that changed Aug. 19 when "ABC World News Tonight anchor Elizabeth Vargas framed the matter: 'John Kerry fights back against charges he lied about his war record. He accuses a veterans' group of doing the President's 'dirty work.'"

Meanwhile, MRC reported, "CBS Evening News led with how the group's 'ads may be working' since a CBS poll found a significant drop in support for Kerry amongst veterans."

And "NBC Nightly News didn't lead with Kerry's Thursday blast, but their story did include the show's first playing of any audio from the ad…" MRC said.

The point is, according to MRC, even though the story was finally covered, it still was given a "liberal" slant during most of the coverage.

Though a noted liberal himself, Turner's points are still on-target: Too much conglomeration makes for fewer viewing choices and less overall coverage diversity.

Of his criticism of big media, Turner says "this is a fight about freedom--the freedom of independent entrepreneurs to start and run a media business, and the freedom of citizens to get news, information, and entertainment from a wide variety of sources, at least some of which are truly independent and not run by people facing the pressure of quarterly earnings reports."

"No one should underestimate the danger. Big media companies want to eliminate all ownership limits. With the removal of these limits, immense media power will pass into the hands of a very few corporations and individuals," he writes.

The solution? "Bust up the big conglomerates."

But will it happen? That remains to be seen, but Turner cautions the conglomerates – as well as their political sponsors – based on "the public's broad and bipartisan rebellion against the FCC's pro-consolidation decisions," big media "may again be on the wrong side of history--and up against a country unwilling to lose its independents."

Editor's note: