Looks like the Senate will be getting their way with the FCC, even if they don’t change ownership caps. S. 1264, the FCC Reauthorization Act of 2003, will change the FCC’s currently mandated two-year review of media-ownership rules to four years, eliminate the highly controversial 50% UHF discount rule, close the loophole that currently allows senior FCC employees to evade the one-year “cooling off” period when they leave government service, and ban employee travel funded by special interests.
“It is my hope that the FCC will take the hint and use these tools that we are providing in this bill to benefit consumers,” said Senator Fritz Hollings (D-SC), co-sponsor of S. 1264. Senators Hollings and Ted Stevens (R-AK) introduced bipartisan legislation to reinstate and codify the 35% cap on national broadcast media ownership and the TV-newspaper cross-ownership ban. The bill would eliminate any future review by the FCC.
