So, today the FCC will vote about the old rules, and will likely decide to get rid of those rules. I wrote a letter to my representative and signed an online petition, but I think the rule changes will go through anyway.
Here's some links and articles about the rule changes.
WASHINGTON (CNN) -- The head of the Federal Communications Commission has "no doubt" the agency will vote Monday to ease restrictions on media ownership, but a key lawmaker said he is concerned about further consolidation in the industry.
The changes are expected to be approved on a 3-2 vote, supported by FCC Chairman Michael Powell.
"There is no doubt," Powell told ABC's This Week. "There will be a vote tomorrow."
Sen. John McCain, Commerce Committee chairman, which oversees the FCC, said he fears that concentration of broadcast outlets in the wake of the vote "might deprive Americans of diversity and localization of their news and information." McCain, R-Ariz., has scheduled a hearing Wednesday to question the FCC's five commissioners about the rules.
"I can assure you that Congress will be involved," McCain said Sunday. "Some legislation has already been introduced and if necessary it will be passed."
Under the proposed rules, a single media company could own enough television stations to reach as much as 45 percent of the U.S. television market, up from the current ceiling of 35 percent. Companies would be allowed to own both television stations and newspapers in all but the smallest markets, and in large markets, individual companies could own several radio and television stations as well as the newspaper and cable outlet.
Powell said changing the rules would balance the public interest with concerns about the health of the broadcast industry in the face of competition from the Internet and cable television.
"It's a contextualizing of those rules, modernizing of rules, many of which date back to the Roosevelt era," he said.
Opponents range from the conservative National Rifle Association and the Family Research Council to liberal groups like Common Cause and the National Organization for Women. They argue that eliminating most ownership rules for radio in the 1996 Telecommunications Act led to less competition, less local news and fewer voices being heard on public issues, and predicted the same thing would occur under this proposal.
Members of Congress, consumer groups and the FCC's two Democrats have asked for a delay of Monday's scheduled vote, but Powell -- the son of Secretary of State Colin Powell -- said no delay is necessary.
"It seems to me only in Washington is an additional 30 days meritorious when the record is complete, when we have heard an extraordinary amount of comment from the public, and we have the specifics that we need," he said.
The FCC held just one public hearing on the issue, but it has received hundreds of thousands of comments from the public. Critics say that comments run overwhelmingly against the changes, and that the proposal has been publicized widely only in the past few weeks.
Outside the television studio where McCain and Powell discussed Monday's vote, a half-dozen people chanted and carried signs protesting the proposed rules. One sign said, "Democracy requires media diversity."
One woman brought an item of lingerie emblazoned with the words "Michael Powell, you're cancelled." She called it "Michael Powell's Pink Slip."
Powell discounted fears that the changes would result in widespread concentration of ownership and predicted they would result in more public interest programming.
"I think you'll see some restructuring, but I happen to personally believe not nearly as much as some of the alarmist rhetoric would suggest," he said. "Just because somebody can buy something doesn't mean it makes strategic or financial sense to do so."
He acknowledged that similar rules changes in the radio industry in recent years had caused "problems in radio" and he said the FCC is looking at strengthening some rules involving radio stations.
McCain told ABC the new rules can "probably" be justified, but said the experience of the radio industry -- where one company, Clear Channel Communications, now owns more than 1,200 stations -- raises "a major concern."
"I do believe there is a situation of continued consolidation within the media which may, over time, deprive Americans of the news and information that they need," he said.
His concerns were echoed by consumer advocacy groups. "I don't think this country can afford to have a handful of giant companies control the nation's television stations, radio stations, newspapers, cable systems, even access to the Internet," said Jeffrey Chester, of the Washington-based Center for Digital Democracy.
"If you care about diversity of viewpoints, if you care about what kinds of kids' programming your kid can see on television, how much you pay for cable rates, more importantly, whether or not there's a good journalistic watchdog covering your city hall or telling you about the latest threat from al Qaed, we need to have safeguards to protect the public's right to a diverse media system.
"Tomorrow, because the biggest media companies have been lobbying the Bush administration, the FCC will sweep away these critical safeguards," he told CNN.
But the prospect that the proposed rules changes will lead a handful of media congomerates to rule over the nation's communications outlets "is just nonsense," said Randolph May, a senior fellow at the Progress and Freedom Foundation, a Washington-based think tank.
"There are 25, 30, 40 companies -- major media companies -- that have significant media properties," he told CNN.
The landscape of the media marketplace has undergone revolutionary change in the decades since many of the current rules were enacted, he said. "When they were adopted, there was no cable television with 300 or 400 channels, and no satellite television, no Internet.
"The fact of the matter is that the marketplace has changed so much that without these types of ownership restrictions, consumers will be able to get the information they want from a diversity of resources."
Among the critics is CNN founder Ted Turner, who said Friday that he could not have succeeded in launching his cable networks if the proposed rules had been in effect in the 1970s.
"When you lose small businesses, you lose big ideas. People who own their own businesses are their own bosses," Turner wrote in an editorial published in the Washington Post. "They are independent thinkers. They know they can't compete by imitating the big guys; they have to innovate. So they are less obsessed with earnings than they are with ideas."
Turner merged his networks, including CNN, with the communications giant Time Warner in 1996. In 2001, Time Warner merged with America Online to create AOL Time Warner, the world's largest media conglomerate.
AOL Time Warner now owns CNN and its sister networks; Home Box Office; the Warner Bros. movie and television studio, WB television network and affiliated record labels; the AOL Internet service; and the Time Inc. magazines, such as Time, Fortune, Sports Illustrated, People and Entertainment Weekly.
Other major U.S. media conglomerates include:
• Disney, which owns the ABC television network, the ESPN cable sports network, the Disney amusement park and movie empire, including subsidiary studios like Miramax and Hollywood Pictures.
• NewsCorp, which owns the Fox broadcast television network and cable news channel, the 20th Century Fox movie studio, the New York Post and several newspapers and television networks in Europe and Australia.
• Viacom, which owns the CBS and UPN television networks; the Infinity radio network, with nearly 200 stations; the cable television networks MTV, Showtime and BET; the Paramount movie and television studios; and the Blockbuster Video movie rental chain.
• Bertlesmann, the German-based company that owns magazine publisher Gruner and Jahr, the music labels RCA and Arista and the book-publishing giant Random House and its subsidiaries.
--CNN Producer Larry Shaughnessy contributed to this report.
