Senate Democrats pressed the
Republican-controlled Federal Communications Commission yesterday to
slap tighter controls on media ownership, public-interest broadcasting
and television violence.

Several Democrats on the Senate Commerce
Committee warned the agency not to try to relax limits on the number of
media outlets one company can own, as the FCC did in 2003 only to have
a federal court stay the action. Recent FCC policies on media
ownership, said Sen. Byron L. Dorgan (D-N.D.), have been “a spectacular
failure.”

He railed against rules that allow one entity to own eight radio
stations in a large city and against proposals to allow one owner to
have three TV stations in a city. “More concentration means less
competition,” Dorgan said. “The public-interest standards have been
nearly completely emasculated.”

But FCC Chairman Kevin J. Martin, who has close ties to the Bush White House, defended the agency’s policies.

“The
commission has tried to make decisions based on a fundamental belief
that a robust, competitive marketplace, not regulation, is ultimately
the greatest protector of the public interest,” Martin said. He told
Dorgan, “I’m not convinced yet we need to have the kind of
requirements” for local TV and radio programming that some advocates
have championed.

Flexing their muscles at Congress’s first
oversight hearing of the FCC since taking control of the House and
Senate last month, Democrats lectured and sometimes scolded FCC
members, saying the agency needs more teeth in its regulation of
broadcast outlets, telephones, the Internet and other services.

“The
change of this last election,” said Sen. John D. Rockefeller IV
(D-W.Va.), “is that there’s going to be a lot more attention on the
FCC. . . . It has abandoned its core responsibility to the public
interest.”

While the two-hour hearing didn’t result in any
mandates, it was more than a rhetorical venting, said Tamara Lipper, a
spokeswoman for Martin.

“The commissioners are informed by the hearings,” she said, and the lawmakers’ comments “become part of the record.”

As
such, scores of lobbyists and interest group members filled long
hallways and stairwells in the Russell Senate Office Building before
crowding into an overflow room to watch the proceedings on TV monitors.
The FCC’s two Democratic commissioners often endorsed the senators’
complaints, while their three GOP colleagues gently pushed back.

Democratic
Commissioner Michael J. Copps told Dorgan that the FCC needs tougher
requirements for broadcast outlets seeking license renewals and more
detailed descriptions of locally produced content that would serve “the
public interest.”

Rockefeller called on the agency to put more
pressure on cable and broadcast TV outlets to reduce the amount of
televised violence. “Commercial television is in the worst state I’ve
ever seen,” he said.

Even sharper was Sen. Barbara Boxer
(D-Calif.), who questioned whether Martin had aggressively looked into
“the suppression” of two reports — drafted by FCC staff members –
that reflected badly on the agency’s media-ownership policies. “A
culture of secrecy is still pervasive at the FCC,” Boxer said.

Martin,
whose voice never rose above a soft drawl, said he made all the
documents public as soon as he learned of them last fall.