Consumers Union * Center for Digital Democracy * Consumer Federation of America Leadership Conference on Civil Rights * Media Access Project * National Asian Pacific American Legal Consortium * National Association for the Advancement of Colored People * National Congress of American Indians * National Council of La Raza * National Urban League


June 4, 2002

The Honorable Michael K. Powell
Chairman
Federal Communications Commission
445 12th Street, S.W.
Washington, D.C. 20554
Re: Media Ownership Rules

Dear Mr. Chairman:

We urge you to heed the advice of Senators Hollings, DeWine, and Kohl, and initiate a much more thorough analysis of how media ownership structures influence programming decisions and the opportunity for new programmers to make news, information, and creative material available to the public. Before the Commission acts to alter or eliminate any media ownership rules, it should engage in a thorough analysis of the anti-competitive and other dangerous effects of contraction in the number of media owners and share that information publicly.

Entertainment variety and the number of channels available to consumers are not what this debate is about. Instead, these Senators have appropriately drawn attention to concentration in media ownership, consolidation of transmission capacity, and the way in which equity stakes in programming undercut diversity of thought and speech, undermine the creation and distribution of independent news, and limit the range of culturally important entertainment products.

We believe that if you engage in a more careful, rigorous analysis, it will be clear that to promote these Senators’ and our goal of diversity of ownership, the Commission must maintain and reinvigorate the ownership rules before it.

Respectfully,

Gene Kimmelman
Director
Consumers Union
Washington DC Office
Tex Hall
President
National Congress
of American Indians
 Karen Narasaki
President
National Asian Pacific
American Legal Consortium
Mark Cooper
Research Director
Consumer Federation of
America
Milton J. Little, Jr.
Executive Vice President
& Chief Operating Officer
National Urban League
Wade Henderson
Executive Director
Leadership Conference
on Civil Rights
Raul Yzaguirre
President
National Council of La Raza
Bureau
 Jeff Chester
Executive Director
Center for Digital Democracy
 Hilary O. Shelton
Director
NAACP Washington DC
Andrew Jay Schwartzman
President and CEO
Media Access Project

***

Consumers Union, publisher of Consumer Reports magazine, is an independent nonprofit testing, educational and information organization serving only the consumer. We are a comprehensive source of unbiased advice about products and services, personal finance, health, nutrition and other consumer concerns. Since 1936, our mission has been to test products, inform the public and protect consumers


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