**REMARKS OF FCC COMMISSIONER MICHAEL J. COPPS**

**NABOB BROADCAST MANAGEMENT CONFERENCE**

**WASHINGTON DC, SEPTEMBER 26, 2008**

Thank you and it's great to be back at NABOB. I want to start by
thanking my good friend Jim Winston---and everyone at NABOB---not just
for your kind invitation to speak today, but for your leadership and
counsel on some of the most important issues we face at the FCC and,
indeed, that we face as a country. By the way, Jim is a rare jewel in
the Washington firmament---someone who understand the issues, really
cares about them, and knows how to get things done. I rely on his
judgment a lot.

As I don't need to tell anyone, we meet this afternoon in difficult
times. The nation's financial sector seems somewhere between wreck and
ruin, certainly in a major crisis. The government is reduced to bailing
out some of the biggest names on Wall Street. And, as so often happens,
it's Main Street that may be asked to pay the price. Who could see it
coming, the pundits ask? Well, maybe they should have seen it coming.
Now, after the fact, little light bulbs are beginning to shine in the
experts' heads. Maybe there was too much deregulation, too much faith in
the unfettered marketplace. Maybe we need more transparency and for the
government to step in and provide some meaningful oversight and public
accountability.

Gee, this all sounds familiar. Let me think . . . manic deregulation . .
. lack of government oversight . . . no public accountability . . .
sounds like what's happened to our media over the past twenty-five
years, doesn't it? You know that story. It got into high gear in the
1980's when they sent us a Chairman of the FCC who declared that
television was nothing but a "toaster with pictures." And that's how he
and his *laissez-faire* friends---some in ***very*** high
places---proceeded to regulate it. Public interest guidelines? Gut them.
License renewals? Rubber-stamp them. Media consolidation? Let the good
times roll. Minority ownership? Sorry, not interested---why should
anyone care who makes our toasters?

I'm not going to spend much time talking about the results of this rabid
deregulation. You know what resulted better than I do. Less localism,
less diversity, a few giant media companies who gobbled up ever more of
the nation's media outlets. And, to our collective shame, a country that
is now one-third minority in which people of color own just 3% of all
full-power commercial television stations.

There's an old saying---you know this one better than me, too---"Justice
delayed is justice denied." That certainly applies here. There always
seems to be an excuse why we can't do more.  Maybe some of you were at
that Congressional hearing in the House when Bobby Rush gave such
eloquent vent to his frustration and anger over this constant making of
excuses in order to justify doing nothing. But isn't it interesting how
excuse-making magically disappears when the big media companies come to
the FCC asking for more deregulation and more media consolidation?  So
we've had years and years of pedal to the metal, full speed ahead---even
though media consolidation only makes it ***harder*** for minorities and
women to buy TV and radio stations, ***harder*** for broadcasters to
serve their local communities when they are controlled by a huge
conglomerate hundreds or thousands of miles away, ***harder*** for the
media to serve the people's interest..

That's pretty much what's been happening at the FCC. Last December, the
Commission majority wanted to relax one of the few remaining constraints
on media consolidation---the ban on newspaper-broadcast cross-ownership.
But they got a strong message from Congress and the courts that they had
to address minority and female ownership and localism ***before***
voting to allow more media consolidation. So we passed a few incentives,
but---let's be candid here---the majority didn't get anywhere near the
heart of a workable solution. They put off real action on the most
important questions until another day---things like deciding who is
eligible to benefit from the FCC incentive programs. Right now the door
is open a whole lot wider for white males than it is for minorities and
women.

 Their excuse, when pressed, still is: "Gee, we can't do more because we
just don't have an adequate record." But if we lack a record, lack the
data, who's to blame? Remember Pogo: "We have met the enemy and it is
us." Why didn't we go out and gather it? Why aren't we doing that now?
If the majority suddenly awoke last December to the realization that
they didn't have the record, wouldn't that have been the time to launch,
for example, the *Adarand* studies that the courts would want to see to
justify a really activist approach---and what I mean by "activist" is a
more race-conscious approach to reverse the costly loss of
minority-owned stations. Wouldn't that have been the time to clean up
the almost total information gap that exists when it comes to FCC data
on minorities in the media? Have we done anything to proactively enforce
our new non-discrimination rules? Have we done ***anything*** really
substantive in the past nine months to move the ball forward? You folks
ought to be marching on the FCC after all these years of not-so-benign
neglect.

I can really only think of two things we've done. In July, we had an
access to capital hearing in New York. That was nice if it had been the
beginning of something real, but why does it seem to be receding into
just another event in the FCC's history books?

The second thing we've done may hold more promise. Earlier this month,
we sought comment on the petition filed by NABOB and other organizations
asking the FCC to investigate Arbitron's Personal People Meter system.
The initial comments were just filed two days ago, so I can't give you
any final reactions, but let me make a few initial observations.

First, some very serious questions have been raised about the PPM
system. Might it not have some decidedly discriminatory effects on
stations serving minority audiences? Could this mean even fewer
minority-owned stations on the air---difficult as that is to imagine?
Why did the Media Ratings Council deny accreditation in both New York
and Philadelphia? Why did Arbitron use a different methodology in
Houston than in other markets where it is rolling out PPM? I'm not the
only one asking these questions. Last week, Senators Inouye and Leahy
wrote to Arbitron asking many of the same kind of questions. Both the
FCC's Diversity Committee and, just this week, the New York City Council
have recommended that the FCC open an investigation of PPM and its
potential impact on radio diversity. That strikes me as an eminently
reasonable request.

Of course there are some who question whether the FCC has any role to
play here. After all, we don't regulate Arbitron, so why would we
investigate PPM? As I said, the comments are still coming in, but my
initial view is that this argument misses the point. Just because we
don't directly regulate Arbitron doesn't mean we don't have an interest
in these issues. First, we have a strong interest in promoting
diversity---both under our general public interest authority as well as
the express directive of Section 257. But if and when we really get
serious about minority ownership, we will only be successful if we
understand the ecosystem in which minority owners operate. We may not be
regulating Arbitron, but then again we don't regulate banks either, and
yet we should---indeed, we must---take into account the difficulties of
access to capital if we are going to construct effective rules. So
anything that affects media diversity and minority ownership---and I'm
not drawing specific conclusions here---affects our ability to do our
job.

But, going a step further, we actually ***do*** have a very direct
interest in the accuracy of Arbitron data. The FCC relies on Arbitron
data, for instance, in applying our local radio ownership caps and in
license transfers and rule-making proceedings. It's not surprising that
we rely on Arbitron---there aren't any competing services currently out
there. If we are going to rely on a commercial service for the data we
need to do our job, it seems to me that we have a legitimate interest in
that data's accuracy, don't you think?

I hope this doesn't become yet another of those tired old arguments
about regulation versus deregulation. This isn't about philosophy or
theories of political science. Nor is it about taking over the ratings
business. It is, in the first instance, about fact-finding and shining
the light of day on what may be a real-world harm. Then, when we get the
facts, it is about figuring out how to correct any problem.

More broadly, let me say that I have never been in favor of blind
regulation---any more than I was ever in favor of the blind
de-regulation that has plagued this town and our country for most of the
past nearly 30 years. But markets aren't always perfect. If the markets
aren't working to produce what society really cares about, like
educational children's programming or reflecting the true diversity of
our country, then government has a legitimate role to play. Our goals
should be firm, but we must always be pragmatic about how to achieve
them. Like my hero Franklin Roosevelt, we must be guided by the
evidence---if something works, great; if it doesn't work, try something
else.

Let me cite a couple of other examples that I think this audience is
interested in. These come out of the Commission's Localism proceeding.

First, there is a question about whether we should require 24/7 staffing
at broadcast stations. We all know what happened several years ago in
Minot, North Dakota, where a train derailment at 2:30 in the morning
spewed a huge cloud of poisonous gas over the city. The emergency
response was confused at best. Local radio stations were running without
staff in the middle of the night and didn't transmit any emergency
information for several hours while local officials tracked down the
local station managers. Now, I know there are different explanations for
what happened in Minot that night, but the larger point remains---there
may be public emergencies at any time of the day or night and we need to
make sure that broadcasters are prepared to get the word out as quickly
as possible.

But we have to be smart about it. There may well be better ways to skin
this cat than requiring 24/7 staffing. I've read NABOB's comments on
this and I've talked to several groups of state broadcasters. Just this
week, I met with a group of broadcasters from Louisiana, some of them
small market owners, who told me that a 24/7 staffing requirement could
cost them \$100,000 or more a year just to have someone sitting at the
station all night in case something happened. Other broadcasters told me
they would simply shut down overnight because they couldn't afford to
stay on the air.

I greatly appreciate getting that kind of input. In some of these
meetings we've started to discuss a third way, something to protect us
from another Minot but not burdensome on station owners. Basically, it
would require local broadcasters to coordinate with local public safety
officials to provide 24/7 contact information for local staff with the
authority and the ability to respond to a crisis. The broadcast stations
would then have to certify to the FCC that such coordination has been
done. I look forward to discussing this with all of you and with my
colleagues as the proceeding moves along. I haven't married this idea,
but I am married to the idea of solving problems through common-sense
and cooperation wherever we can.

Another issue is the main studio rule. As you know, that rule has been
relaxed over the years to permit stations to locate their main studio
outside of the community of license---sometimes way too far outside the
community of license. We had one case recently where the main studio was
located ***over a hundred miles*** from the community it was licensed to
serve. So I understand the motivation behind the proposal to think about
going back to the old rule. If a main studio is 50, 60, or 100 miles
from the community of license, it's just a tad unlikely that the station
manager is going to be hanging out in the local café or joining the
local PTA.

So maybe just reverting to the old rule would do more harm than good.
Whether the prior relaxation of the rule was correct or not, licensees
have relied on those changes and many of them have invested in new
studios that comply with the new rules. My old boss Senator Hollings
always used to say that business can't operate with a question mark.
Especially when businesses invest in infrastructure based on FCC
actions, we need to be very careful about reversing course.

Here again we need to think anew, and I believe that here, too, we can
find a win-win solution. The goal is the same---how do we ensure an
ongoing, on-the-ground dialogue between broadcasters and their listeners
or viewers about local needs and interests. The main studio rule is one
way to promote that dialogue but there are others. Many, many
broadcasters do this local groundwork as a matter of course. They know
that staying in touch with your local community is not only a public
good, it's good business. Hopefully, whatever we come up with in this
area will not inconvenience those broadcasters---like I'm sure most
everyone here in this room---who are already actively engaged with their
local communities. But we do need to find a way to make sure that
***all*** broadcasters are following your example. And I know this: we
should not let any of them free-ride on your good work.

You know, these haven't been very good years for the public interest,
for America's media environment, for expanded minority participation in
the media, or for the civic dialogue upon which our democracy depends.
In fact, that civic dialogue has been dumbed down beyond belief. And
that's one big reason the doors of equal opportunity remain shut to so
many people in America. But I'm an optimist, I really am. And I think
change just may be on its way to Washington. I'm a believer that our
history can be traced through cycles of reform following years of
reactionary policies, and that today, America is ready---way past
ready---for the reform part of the cycle.

When that cycle comes---and it's no slam-dunk that it will---I believe
media has to be high on the priority list of issues needing to be
tackled. Tackled right away. Now some will say, "Oh there goes Copps
again, off on some media tangent." And even some in this audience may
say, "Hold on, we've got worse problems out there---persistent poverty,
discrimination, two wars, a ridiculous health insurance system, poor
schools, a fast-deteriorating planet and now, on top of all that, an
economy deep in the tank. What's the big deal with media?"

Well, here's the big deal with media: all these other issues, if they're
covered by big media at all, are too often filtered through the funnel
and perspectives of a few industry giants. They often are not presented
with the attention they need if we are to have a civic dialogue that
gives people the facts they must have in order to make intelligent
decisions for the future of the country. The present big media system
can be very constricting to an issue, even fatal. So what I'm saying is
that if you think these issues I've mentioned---such as discrimination,
health and education policies, peace and war---might fare a little
better in a more open media where other viewpoints and minority
perspectives are presented and debated, then media needs to be pretty
high up---I'd say way, way up---on your list of things to get changed
when change comes to town. And, by the way, I also believe that change
would have come to town sooner than now if we had had that kind of
coverage of real news and real issues and real people rather than what
has passed for "news" and "in-depth" broadcast journalism at too many
big media stations in recent years.

Here's what I'd really like to see. I'd like to see us be ready for
change. I'd like to see all of us out there right now pushing these
issues---doing so on your stations, in our newspapers, in our
communities, with our families and friends, and with all of the
candidates running for offices across this land. This isn't an issue
they should find out about and start to be educated about when they get
to Washington. This is something they need to hear from the folks back
home. At the grassroots. Right now. If we're lucky enough to get real
change, no one knows for sure how wide the window of reform will open or
how long it will last. We've got to be ready. Lots of these other issues
are teed up for attention. Why should we think we don't need to tee up
media if we really want results? So my message to you today is to take
it on big-time now, tee it up, get it on the priority list. You know how
to do this much better than I do---it's how we've made the progress
we've made in prying open the doors of opportunity in this land.

In Minneapolis in May, at the Media Reform Conference, one of my heroes,
Bill Moyers, advised us to do just this. "Tell it," he said---tell the
story, highlight the issue, explain the stakes, wherever you go. That,
my friends, is exactly the road for us to travel. ***That's*** the road
to victory---the road to a media that works for every American, that
opens doors of opportunity, enhances our civic dialogue, and truly
serves the public interest.

We ***can*** do this. If we really work together and pull together, we
can have a media of which we can all be proud---one that reflects and
nourishes our diversity; one that educates and informs us as citizens;
and one that provides a truly local voice to every community. In other
words, we can come out of this struggle with a media that is worthy of
the American people because it is truly of, by and for the American
people. I look forward to working with NABOB to make it happen.

Thanks for feeding me lunch and thanks for all the good things you do.