With an addition, FCC could be decisive

By BRIAN LOWRY

ONCE THE U.S. FINISHES commemorating dead presidents, the Federal Communications Commission should be poised to adjourn its extended holiday.Almost a year has passed since Michael Powell's rancorous tenure as FCC chairman ended, leaving the five-member commission in a 2-2 deadlock between Republican and Democratic appointees. That will change assuming that just-nominated telecom attorney Robert McDowell is confirmed, joining chairman Kevin Martin and newbie commissioner Deborah Taylor Tate, sworn in last month, to form a GOP majority.

"The commission was very much in limbo," says D.C.-based communications policy attorney Michael R. Gardner, who expects Martin to "very judiciously frame compromises in the public interest," which would certainly mark a contrast from Powell.

Beyond breathing some fresh air into Washington's toxic politics, decisive action by the panel would be equally welcome if it can bring long-deferred clarity to a regulatory environment that has languished since 2004, when the 3rd Circuit Court of Appeals overturned the Powell FCC's attempt to draft new cross-ownership limits.

Of course, at times it seems as if the FCC exists primarily to position commissioners for lucrative employment following government service. Upon leaving the commission Powell aligned himself with a major private equity firm, as did his predecessor, William Kennard.

If the 42-year-old McDowell were a stock, I would have bought 500 shares the day his nomination was announced.

Whoever winds up getting rich, though, the media world is changing rapidly while these guidelines have sat dormant, casting a cloud over potential dealmaking. And while a Republican majority will favor pro-business solutions, fears of letting the big expand further become somewhat less daunting as the sand keeps shifting beneath their over-sized feet.

Even media behemoths, and certainly some of their high-profile stockholders, have begun questioning the merits of gigantism -- not out of civic duty, but as a means to spark sluggish stock prices. As Sony chairman Howard Stringer observed last summer, "One minute we think scale is important. The next minute we think something else."

Despite the Viacom-CBS divorce and Carl Icahn's campaign to break up Time Warner, there's still value in News Corp. and Time Warner possessing the size to bully smaller players and exploit entertainment properties across multiple platforms, and their top brass are smart enough to recognize that.

Yet concern about such prohibitions as rules against owning newspapers and TV stations in the same market has taken on new dimensions as newspapers slog through dismal financial data and broadcast ratings splinter. Suddenly, the concept of letting them team up, even at the risk of reducing content and ownership diversity, is potentially preferable to watching their local news operations separately gutted.

Granted, media watchdogs protest that such companies still make plenty of money and are placing profit margins ahead of the public good. They're right, but that genie has left the bottle, and at this stage whether four or five companies own 90% of everything sounds like a relatively minor distinction.

Inasmuch as the Martin-led FCC is likely to support moneyed interests, the central issue is finding ways to mitigate the negative aspects of media consolidation. Unfortunately, the commission seems intent on using its rule-making to exact concessions on indecent content -- a key issue to its chairman -- which merely fosters the illusion of serving the public interest. In reality, it's a media-friendly waste of time, since the indecency debate will never leave us and no amount of federal finger-wagging can legislate the nation's collective smut-lust out of existence.

Whatever the results, the real need is for the commission to act promptly, clearly and cohesively to put the U.S.' jumbled media policy in order.

So get to work, gang. If history is any guide, you'll be amply rewarded for it not too far down the road.

FOUND MONEY: Nielsen delivered a valentine to TV programmers last week, announcing that its ratings sample will include college students living in dormitories, sororities and apartments starting early next year -- causing tune-in among adults 18-24, a sought-after and elusive demographic segment, to rise "anywhere from 3%-12%," per the ratings service.

In addition to MTV, this promises to be good news for "Late Night With Conan O'Brien," "The Daily Show," and primetime series ranging from soaps to reality to Fox's animated "Family Guy." Estimates are that average college students watch 24 hours of TV a week, squandering hours that should be devoted to creating memories disqualifying them from high political office, or occasionally studying.

Networks have long griped about Nielsen's failure to tabulate this audience, and while changing the measuring stick is usually the last refuge of a scoundrel, discovering what the kids are up to -- or rather, sitting down to -- is long overdue.

If nothing else, it'll be nice to know that college kids are carrying on their baby-boomer parents' tradition: Sloughing off books to watch TV.