Re: Donna gets heard - and seen! (on Nightline, of course)

[Garrett Wollman <wollman@lcs.mit.edu>]

<<On Thu, 29 May 2003 00:00:30 -0400, "Dan Billings" <billings@suscom-maine.net> said:

> Koppel in his opening invoked the name of President Reagan.  In effect
> blaming him for the state of things.  Reagan did push for the end of the
> so-called Fairness Doctrine and other content regulations but the none of
> the changes in the ownership rules happened on his watch.

I think that there is a legitimate argument to be made that, without
rule changes made by the FCC when it was in Republican hands (both
Reagan and Bush I), the changes in ownership limits stemming from the
Telecom Act (and not, as the NIGHTLINE report mistakenly implied, made
by FCC fiat) would have had little impact, because those changes were
necessary for the economic viability of a company like Clear Channel.
If each station in an eight-station cluster were required to actually
serve its nominal community of license with programming tailored to
the specific needs of that community, the available economies of scale
would be significantly less.

-GAWollman