And Commissioner Michael O’Rielly lays the blame for keeping the Media Ownership Rules much like they’ve been since the 90s right at the feet of FCC Chairman Thomas Wheeler. “The Commission has failed to comply with Congress’ directive for almost a decade. And yet, we were told by the Chairman almost two years ago that this time would be different. The end result, as represented in this item, is more of the same obfuscation, ignorance, hyper-partisanship, and defiance as before.”
O’Rielly said even after being prodded by a court order to complete the statutorily-mandated Quadrennial Review, the Commission “has managed to produce a thoroughly objectionable document divorced from the realities of today’s media marketplace.”
He says social media giants, online news sites, over-the-top video content, traditional pay TV, and many other media sources are eating away at the audiences of broadcasters and newspapers by the day. “Congress anticipated this type of upheaval in the dynamic media environment, and designed the Quadrennial Review requirement to address it by forcing us to adjust our media ownership rules in response. However, it seems that to my colleagues, all evidence of the myriad new challenges to the past dominance of newspapers and broadcasters serves merely as fodder for interesting gee-whiz anecdotes to be trotted out, never as a prompt for any responsive action by the Commission.”
Read O’Rielly’s dissenting opinion HERE
