Statement of FCC Commissioner Michael J. Copps on Broadcast Localism

From the earliest days of broadcasting,
we have obligated licensees to serve the needs and interests of their
local communities.  The principle of localism is at the heart of
the public interest.  I support the Commission’s renewed interest
in promoting localism, although we should have examined these issues
prior to loosening our media concentration protections, not after those
rules were gutted.  



During
the hearings and forums on media ownership that Commissioner Adelstein
and I attended across the country, we heard time and again from
citizens about the detrimental impact that consolidation has already
had on localism and diversity and we heard their fears about where
still more concentration will lead.   Localism is one of the
fundamental goals of our ownership rules and of the public
interest.  I believe that it is impossible to divorce localism
from ownership.  With the consolidation genie out of the bottle,
it will be too late then to stem the tide.  



Enhancing political and civic discourse:   From 1996 to 2000,
coverage of the Presidential race on the network evening news
dropped by one-third.  The average Presidential candidate sound
bite in 2000 was 8 to 9 seconds.  Local newscasts fared no
better.  In the 2002 election, over half of the evening local
newscasts contained no campaign coverage at all.  What coverage
there is tends to focus inordinately on the latest tracking polls and
handicapping the horse race rather than on the serious issues the
nation needs to be discussing.  And when you get down to the
Congressional and local races, the situation is even more dismal. 
We also see less public affairs programming.  One survey found less than one half of one percent of programming is devoted to local public affairs.  We have studies.  We have comments.  We don’t have action.



Community-responsive programming and License Renewals: 
Broadcast stations have an obligation to air programming responsive to
the needs and interests of their communities of license…As one part of
the effort to ensure that licensees are serving their local
communities, we desperately need to establish an effective license
renewal process under which the Commission would once again actually
consider the manner in which a station has served the public interest
when it comes time to renew its license.  One thing is certain:
the current system of postcard renewal for licenses is not serving the
public interest.



Communication with Communities:
As local stations come under the control of far-away media
conglomerates, it is time to move forward and act. ..When the issue is
how to hold Big Media accountable to the local communities they serve,
we are stuck at the starting gate.  The better part of good
government here is to move ahead and act on those matters where we
already have compiled a record or where the statute has long since told
us to be about our job of protecting the public interest.

(click here to learn more about localism)