LAS VEGAS -- The jury is still out on just how media-friendly new FCC chairman Michael Powell will be.
Admittedly, he comes to the job with high approval ratings for his varied deregulatory stands. And as the son of popular secretary of state Colin Powell, there's a certain aura around him.
But as a commissioner since 1997, he has sometimes voted with his Democratic colleagues on the FCC in favor of policies that many in the broadcast industry object to.
So which will it be?
When he received word Jan. 22 that Bush had just upped him from FCC commissioner to chairman, Powell was in Las Vegas for the annual Natl. Assn. of Television Program Executives confab.
Speaking on a panel called "Your Government at Work: The Year Ahead," Powell reassured station execs that his deregulatory instincts are still strong.
"No industry is harmed more by over-regulation than the broadcasting industry," he said.
Powell is expected to relax the FCC's mergers review policy, making more expeditious the approval of such combinations like AOL and Time Warner.
Under his leadership, the FCC is also likely to more critically scrutinize the various ownership caps --- including the restriction on ownership of newspapers and stations in the same market, as well as the 35% ceiling on stations' national coverage.
However, the most immediate issue on folks' minds at NATPE was D.C.'s dickering over digital.
Powell says he believes the FCC should remove impediments to digital TV, including whether the 2006 deadline to go all digital should be somehow extended. That could mean exempting smaller stations from the deadline, while still holding larger stations' feet to the fire.
Although these stances are reassuring to broadcasters, the FCC, in one of its final acts as a majority Democratic commission, did toss in a particularly confusing ruling on the eve of NATPE, stating it might be unconstitutional to force cablers to carry a TV station's analog and digital signal during the critical phase-out period leading to all-digital broadcasting.
Broadcasters at NATPE were perplexed over the ruling --- and in particular disappointed that Powell didn't come out against it.
"There has to be must-carry. I'm not ready to give that up," James Hedlund, the head of the Assn. of Local TV Stations, told convention-goers.Naturally, cablers praised the FCC's must-carry decision, saying that to force cablers to carry both analog and digital signals at the same time would put unfair burdens on the cable industry.
Powell, for his part, played it close to the vest during his Las Vegas sojourn, declining to elaborate on his specific agenda or the new directions that the Republican-controlled FCC may take.
"It will be a tough job for Powell. Being an FCC commissioner is a whole different ball game than being chairman," one industry exec says.
In other words, the new FCC under Powell may prove to be just as baffling as the old one under William Kennard.
Contact Pamela McClintock at
pamela.mcclintock@variety.com