NASA DISPUTES POWELL STATEMENTS ON 35% OWNERSHIP CAP

The Network Affiliated Stations Alliance (NASA) has challenged FCC Chmn. Powell over his published statements on the 35% TV station ownership cap. At issue is Powell’s briefing of reporters last Thurs. in which he said the cap in some cases harmed the public interest and there was evidence network-owned stations produced more news and won more awards than independently owned affiliates (CD May 2 p2). In a letter to the chairman Mon., NASA said the evidence of record showed independently owned affiliates outperformed network- owned stations when figures were adjusted for market size -- a position with which “the networks’ economists agreed.”

Said NASA: “It should be obvious that this is a necessary correction [because] the networks own 19 of the 20 network-affiliated stations in the top 5 markets… The 7,280,000 households in the New York City DMA [designated market area] generate more news than do the 67,000 households in the Charlotte, Va., DMA.” The FCC’s in-house staff study did not make that adjustment, NASA told Powell, and by adjusting for market size, independently owned stations outperformed the networks’ stations “in terms of quality” of news and public affairs -- and “the networks did not contest this conclusion.”

NASA also took issue with Powell’s statement, as quoted in the April 30 Financial Times, that growth of cable and satellite services into homes had “placed a question mark over the willingness of television networks to continue broadcasting free of charge.” The “financial survival or health” of the TV networks isn’t an issue in the ownership rulemaking, which is scheduled for vote by commissioners at their June 2 agenda meeting, NASA said. If the networks’ profitability is relevant, the record should be reopened because “there is little or no information before the Commission… that bears on this issue,” it said.

In a related development, NBC, Fox and Viacom-CBS responded late Fri. to a series of ex parte statements by NASA and NAB filed at the FCC over the last 2 weeks (CD April 23 p9). The networks called the NASA arguments a “red herring redux -- more unsupported, ill-considered and irrelevant arguments for retention” of the ownership cap. NASA-NAB “have utterly failed to meet their burden” for retention of the rule under provisions of the 1996 Telecom Act, the networks told the Commission.