Over the objections of broadcasters, the FCC this afternoon took the first big step toward imposing local programming and ascertainment requirements on TV and radio stations.

At a long-running open meeting today, the commissioners voted to launch a rulemaking aimed at requiring TV stations to create permanent community boards to advise them on programming.

“Most importantly, we tentatively conclude that broadcasters must air a certain amount of local programming,” announced FCC Chairman Kevin Martin.

“The changes that we propose are intended to promote localism by providing viewers and listeners greater access to locally responsive programming, including, but not limited to, local news and other civic affairs programming,” said Martin

“A strong commitment to serving local communities lies at the heart of … the broadcasters’ requirement to serve the public interest,” he added.

Under the FCC proposal, broadcasters would have to demonstrate that they met the local programming guidelines when they apply for license renewal.

Broadcasters and other interested parties will have a chance to formally comment on the proposals before the FCC considers adopting them.

Republican Commissioner Robert McDowell broke ranks with the chairman on the rulemaking.

"I do not believe that government needs to, or should, foist upon local stations its preferences regarding categories of programming," McDowell said. "We risk treading on the First Amendment rights of broadcasters with unnecessary regulation.

"An order reflecting these conclusions will be overturned in court," McDowell warned.

The FCC’s two Democrats, Jonathan Adelstein and Michael Copps, supported Martin, but expressed skepticism that Martin would follow through in turning the proposals and into actual rules.

“The localism proceeding continues to be used as political cover for the commission to weaken broadcast ownership rules,” Adelstein charged.

Nonetheless, the Democrats approved of the rulemaking's thrust.

"In word, if not in deed,” Adelstein said, “it represents a shift from the commission’s earlier miscalculation that marketplace forces alone will insure that broadcasters produce sufficient quality local news and support local artists and…informed local political and civic affairs programming.”

The National Association of Broadcasters last week tried to scuttle the rulemaking.

After it was adopted, NAB EVP Dennis Wharton said it carries “grave First Amendment implications” and “stems from a false notion that radio and television stations have abandoned our commitment to serving communities or have stopped offering distinctive local programming.

"We are confident that any truly objective localism analysis will vindicate the performance of radio and TV broadcasters, and overshadow the shrill voices of those who would regulate broadcasters back to the 1960s,” he said.

The FCC’s action was overshadowed at the meeting by two other high-profile and highly controversial items.

In one, the agency, by a 3-2 vote along party lines (Republicans for, Democrats against), relaxed its newspaper-broadcast ownership rule to permit common ownership of daily newspapers and broadcast stations in the top 20 markets and such combinations in smaller markets if owners can meet waiver criteria.

Martin pushed for the vote, despite stiff and vocal opposition from Copps and Adelstein and from Capitol Hill. Key senators and congressmen had warned Martin not to proceed.

In the other, the FCC capped cable system ownership. Under the new rule, a cable operator is limited to serving no more than 30 percent of all pay TV subscribers. The FCC also decided to seek more comments on limiting the number of programming channels that a cable operator may own.

In the cable vote, Martin was supported by Copps and Adelstein. Republican Commissioners McDowell and Deborah Tate voted against it.

The broadcast localism action was the FCC’s second in as many months. Both are intended to make broadcasters more responsive to the city and towns they are licensed to serve, according to the FCC.

Last month, the agency voted to require TV stations to make quarterly reports on standardized forms detailing how much programming they air in certain categories, including local news, civic and electoral programming and independently produced programming.

On the forms, stations must also list how many PSAs they aired during the quarter, what emergency information they provided and what they did “to ascertain the programming needs of various segments of the community.”

As broadcasters have pointed out, the FCC’s twin actions amount to a turning back of the regulatory clock.

During the Reagan administration, under the leadership of then-Chairman Mark Fowler, the FCC eliminated most of the programming and ascertainment obligations that plagued stations at renewal time.

The NAB tried to rally Washington communications attorneys and members last week in an 11^th hour effort to derail the localism push.

The advertising industry had more luck. Just before the scheduled start of the FCC’s meeting, Martin pulled from the agenda a rulemaking aimed at regulating product-placement advertising.

The rulemaking had been the target of a concerted lobbying effort in recent days by the American Association of Advertising Agencies, the American Advertising Federation and the Association of National Advertisers.

“[W]e believe that the commission's consideration of these issues would benefit from having a fact-gathering proceeding first to determine whether problems exist before fashioning a regulatory solution,” the trade groups said.

TV broadcasters operating in smaller markets were disappointed by the FCC’s decision affirming the TV duopoly rule, which bars a single company from owning more than one station in small markets (eight or fewer TV owners).

The duopoly rule “preserves the commission’s core competition goals among television stations in local markets,” the FCC said.

The FCC relaxation of the newspaper-broadcast crossownership rule came as part of statutory review of all the FCC’s media ownership rules.

Recognizing that the FCC was unlikely to go beyond the newspaper-broadcast crossownership, a coalition of small-market TV broadcasters had asked the FCC set aside the duopoly rules rather than affirming them.

“That conclusion would be contrary to law and the factual record … and would sacrifice the interests of the pubic that the smaller-market stations serve,” the coalition says in a 10-page petition.

The coalition, represented by Covington & Burling, comprises Barrington Broadcasting, Cordillera Communications, Fisher Communications, Freedom Broadcasting, LIN Television, Morgan Murphy Media, Quincy Newspapers, Raycom Media, Drewry Communications and Schurz Communications.