Timeline of Media Regulations

By kaitlyn.watt20

  • Non-Entertainment Programming are Abolished

    Guidelines for minimal amounts of non-entertainment programming are abolished. FCC guidelines on how much advertising can be carried per hour are eliminated.

  • Fairness Doctrine

    "Fairness Doctrine" eliminated. At its founding the FCC viewed the stations to which it granted licenses as "public trustee" — and required that they made every reasonable attempt to cover contrasting points of views. The Commission also required that stations perform public service in reporting on crucial issues in their communities.

  • Telecommunications Act of 1996

    President Clinton signs the Telecommunications Act of 1996. It is generally regarded as the most important legislation regulating media ownership in over a decade.

  • Senate Commerce Committee

    Senate Commerce Committee hears panelists speak about media ownership. Senator Fritz Hollings (D-SC) expresses concerns about media consolidation. Mel Karmazin (President and COO, Viacom), Alan Frank (CEO, Post-Newsweek Stations, Inc.), Jack Fuller (President, Tribune Publishing Company), William Baker (President, WNET, New York City), Gene Kimmelman (Co-Director, Consumer's Union), and Professor Eli M. Noam (Columbia Business School) in attendance.

  • Roundtable on Media Ownership Policies

    FCC conducts a roundtable on media ownership policies. Government officials, business analysts, academics, and media advocates in attendance.

  • Review of Media Ownership Rules

    THE NEW YORK TIMES reports that the FCC will conduct a review of media ownership rules, as mandated by the Telecommunications Act of 1996. The FCC commissions several studies of the media marketplace to review the rules on an empirical basis. They start the review in September, 2002.

  • 12 studies on the Media Marketplace

    FCC releases 12 studies on the media marketplace. The studies comment on how Americans get their news, the state of television, newspaper, and radio industries, and a variety of other media issues.

  • Media Ownership Laws Change

    The FCC revised its limits for broadcast ownership (read Media Ownership Rule Changes) but multiple parties appealed this decision. The cases were consolidated and assigned to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit, which stayed the effective date of the new rules.

  • Tenth Annual Report

    The Federal Communications Commission ("FCC") released its tenth annual report on competition in the market for the delivery of video programming. The report examines the status of competition, discusses changes that have occurred in the competitive environment over the last year, and describes barriers to competition that continue to exist. The FCC released the report at an open meeting in San Antonio, Texas.

  • Consumer's Union Release

    The Consumer's Union released its new national survey of where people turn for local news. The survey found "newspapers are more than twice as important a source than the Federal Communications Commission determined when it relaxed its media ownership rules."