Word: fowlers
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...Fowler's goals are twofold: to end the financial restrictions on how broadcasting companies do business and to strip away Government control of program content. Fowler has asked Congress to repeal the Fairness Doctrine, a touchstone of communications policy that obligates broadcasters to air opposing views on issues of public importance. He wants to eradicate the "777 Rule," which aims to promote diversity by preventing companies from owning more than seven AM, seven FM and seven TV stations. He has proposed an end to the 16-min.-per-hr. limit on television commercials. Fowler also wants to do away...
...this as in other issues, Fowler's detractors say that his motto, "Let the marketplace decide," translates as "Let the industry decide." They contend that his stated intention of making the broadcast media as unfettered as print ignores a fundamental distinction: the number of broadcast outlets is limited, and the Government decides who gets them. "The reason for regulation," notes former FCC Chairman Charles Ferris, "is still the scarcity of the spectrum and the fact that not everyone can participate...
...Fowler counters that the proliferation of new delivery systems-cable, direct broadcasting from satellites, low-power stations with a range of 15 miles-will ensure diversity and hence fairness. Moreover, he believes that commercial broadcasters should pay a fee to support educational and public service-oriented programming on public TV. But the voices of the new technologies, points out Daniel Ritchie, chairman of Westinghouse Broadcasting and Cable Inc., are still a whisper. Says Ritchie: "To paraphrase Lincoln Steffens, I have seen the future, and it's still the future. The simple fact is that cable exists for only about...
...Fowler's principal foe in the regulatory forest is Colorado Democrat Timothy Wirth, chairman of the House Telecommunications Subcommittee. Wirth contends that Fowler has been far more vigorous in unshackling the brobdingnagians of broadcast row than in stimulating the entry of new entrepreneurs. Fowler's argument that content regulations constitute censorship and violate the First Amendment has one glaring flaw, says Wirth: the Supreme Court has consistently found them constitutional...
...change is tiny: an adjustment of an exemption in a regulation. But the implications are national. Last week the Federal Communications Commission, in the latest of Chairman Mark Fowler's moves to free the television industry from content regulations, ruled that broadcasters may stage political debates between candidates of their own choosing without necessarily having to grant equal time to those excluded. Fowler maintained that the decision would "permit, encourage and foster increased political debate...