REMARKS OF COMMISSIONER MICHAEL J. COPPS
FCC HEARING ON LOCALISM
PORTLAND, MAINE
JUNE 28, 2007
Tonight we continue a truly remarkable grassroots dialogue about the future of 
our media that began five years ago and which can now – if you and I do our jobs right –
help us create a better media environment here in Maine and all across this land of ours. 
Since the FCC re-opened its review of its media ownership rules last year, we 
have witnessed a growing national concern over what many people believe are disturbing 
trends in the media.  Citizens from all over the country, conservative and liberal, red state 
and blue state, young and old, rural and urban, north and south have come together to 
express their concern and even alarm. For many months the discussion has focused on 
whether the FCC should further loosen its ownership rules with people asking how many 
-- or perhaps, more accurately, how few? -- broadcast stations media conglomerates 
should be allowed to own? For what purposes are stations granted licenses?  And how 
does the public interest fare in a more heavily consolidated environment? Tonight we 
address core media values, particularly localism, from a little different perspective.  But 
we must realize, of course, that it is all part of a larger discussion about protecting the 
people's interest in the people's airwaves.  While the principle of localism is at the heart 
of the public interest, it remains true that no part of this grassroots dialogue can be 
divorced from any other part.
We are here tonight to learn how you think this area's media is doing in serving 
you. Media has a solemn obligation to do that, you know -- because you own the 
airwaves -- you and you alone. No business, no broadcaster, owns an airwave in the 
United States of America. They’re yours. Broadcasters do get the privilege of using 
those airwaves, and in return for a license, they pledge to serve the public interest -- to 
bring you, among other things, good local news, information and entertainment. 
And I do believe that many broadcasters still have that flame to serve the public 
interest burning in their breasts.  There aren’t as many of them now -- there aren’t as 
many station owners any more because of consolidation -- and the truth is that those who 
remain are less and less captains of their own fate these days and more and more captives 
of unforgiving Wall Street and Madison Avenue expectations.  Some tell us the answer is 
to rely more and more on marketplace forces as a proxy for serving the public interest.  
They seem to trust that the public interest will somehow magically trump the urge to 
build power and profit and that localism will somehow survive.
Meanwhile, since the 1980's, fundamental protections of the public interest have 
weakened and withered.  In addition we have pared back the license renewal process 
from one wherein every three years the FCC examined very rigorously whether the 
broadcaster was actually serving the public interest, to one wherein now companies need 
only send us a short form every eight years and generally nothing more.  These days 
getting a license renewed is pretty much a slam dunk.  It's not called postcard renewal for 
nothing.
So step by step, rule by rule, public interest protections were simply frittered 
away.  Believe it or not, we had an FCC Chairman in the 1980s -- when a lot of this 
deregulation really got into high gear -- who said that a television was just “a toaster with 
pictures.”  And that’s how they proceed to treat the people’s airwaves -- just another 
business, nothing special about it.  All this has happened at high and dangerous cost to 
the American people. Our country confronts many urgent priorities but, to my mind, few 
have such long-term importance to our democracy as how America communicates and 
converses with itself and how this process has been eviscerated in recent years. 
The good news is that I believe there’s a difference between the media ownership 
proceeding of three years ago and this time around. We can aim higher now. We don’t 
need to play just defense -- we can start playing offense, too. Now it’s not just a question 
of defeating bad new rules -- although we must still do that. Now we are in a position to 
revisit the bad old rules that got us into this mess in the first place. And we can go on 
from there to restore meaningful public interest responsibilities to our broadcast media.
For starters, let's go back to an honest-to-goodness licensing system that doesn’t 
grant slam-dunk renewals, but stops to ask if a license-holder is really doing its job to 
serve the common good. And let’s do this license renewal every three years -- the way it 
used to be -- not every eight years like it is now. In doing so let’s get answers to some all 
too important questions like did the station show programs on local civic affairs?  What 
type of local political coverage did it provide leading up to Election Day?  Did station 
owners meet with local community leaders and the public? And is the station providing 
children’s programming that is actually educational?  
Let's also put what stations are doing to meet their public interest obligations up 
on the Web, so citizens can know how their airwaves are being used. And let’s make 
sure that all that new digital capacity we’re giving broadcasters returns something 
positive for our communities and local talent and civic issues coverage. If your local 
broadcaster is given the privilege to multi-cast half a dozen program streams into your 
communities and homes, is it too much to expect that some good portion of that should 
be used to enhance localism and diversity? So these are the kinds of things we all need to 
be talking about and I’ll bet there are other ideas we’ll hear tonight. And I hope among 
them will be some discussion about the future of low-power radio and television, because 
in an age of consolidation, they are often the last bastions for media diversity and media 
democracy.
I know we will leave here knowing facts and having perspectives that just 
wouldn't have floated into us had we remained in Washington.  We come to Portland to 
hear directly from members of this community and region and to tap its local expertise as 
to what is happening here.  We start with our panels tonight and I would like to thank 
each panelist for taking the time and trouble to be with us this evening. Most of all, I 
thank you, the good citizens of Portland and the great State of Maine, for coming out to 
share your views with us. Maine is making its voice heard, and I am enormously pleased 
to be here to listen and to learn.