FCC Chair Kevin Martin Proposes Rules To Allow For Greater Media Consolidation

The Chair of the Federal Communications Commission Kevin Martin is proposing to do away with media ownership rules that bar companies from owning both a newspaper and a television or radio station in the same city. Martin's push to rewrite existing rules were revealed by North Dakota Senator Byron Dorgan during a Commerce Committee hearing Wednesday. If approved the new rules could take effect as early as this December. But Senator Dorgan vowed to put up a fight and said "If the chairman intends to do something by the end of the year, then there will be a firestorm of protest and I'm going to be carrying the wood."

Martin has backed a series of studies criticized for an alleged bias towards media consolidation. In 2003, Martin voted with the then-FCC Chairman to lift the same media ownership rules but the effort was overturned by the landmark Prometheus v. FCC decision. The FCC was ordered to justify the changes and their impact on diversity and localism.

• Eric Klinenberg, author of "Fighting for Air: The Battle to Control America's Media." He is an Associate Professor of Sociology at NYU and joins us now from the Stanford University studio in Palo Alto, California.

LISTEN ONLINE