Do nothing.

That's the simple message that the broadcast lobby should be sending to the lawmakers and regulators charged with governing the TV business.

Just don't do it.

TV stations are coming off an unexpectedly bad year and are likely heading into a worse one.

We've got major station groups that have seen their stock prices wither in the face of the financial and economic meltdown. Over the past 18 months, a share of LIN TV has gone from $20 to 86 cents; an issue of Nexstar, from $15 to 66 cents.

We've got layoffs, we've got bankruptcies and we've got a slowdown in the rollout of local HD news and other new services. Nobody knows where the bottom is.

The last thing any broadcaster needs is Congress or the FCC fashioning new laws or rules that would add costs, reduce revenue or force stations to provide services that the marketplace isn't interested in.

With Washington quiet, stations would be better able to focus on finding new sources of revenue to sustain themselves and in making cost cuts that will not permanently damage their businesses.

And in dealing with nervous banks and other creditors, it would nice if broadcasters were able say, "Hey, business is bad, revenue and cash flow are down, but at least Washington isn't doing anything that is going to disrupt our business." Stability matters.

So, how about a one-year moratorium on all rulemaking proceedings?

I mean all. No retransmission consent reform. No localism obligations. No product placement regulations. No restrictions of advertising of any kind. No free political airtime mandates. No more broadcast spectrum grabs. No TV violence restrictions. No nothing.

And while the new FCC is busy doing nothing it might ease up on the indecency enforcement. America can tolerate a stray "fuck" or "shit" in times like these. In fact, America may find those words come in particularly handy in times like these.

I don't see how the broadcasters would lose much with a bold call for do-nothingness.

They badly need ownership relief so that strong stations can roll up the weak before they go bankrupt and so operators of so-called virtual duopolies can eliminate the extra costs associated with maintaining the fiction that the stations are independent.

But they aren't going to get any help on ownership from the new Democratic regime anyway. Some Dems are still whining about FCC Chairman Kevin Martin's slight loosening of the broadcast-newspaper crossownership rule — a wimpy move that neither helped nor hurt anybody.

Getting the Congress and the FCC to do nothing will not be easy.

The new FCC chairman will arrive at the Portals sometime early next year thinking that he or she has a mandate to do something to make America a better place, and broadcasting has always been an easy target. Everybody knows something about TV or at least thinks he does.

The new chairman would not have much trouble pushing a regulatory agenda. There are two other Democrats already on the commission eager to squeeze broadcasters in every way they can. And I'm sure that the new Republican replacement for the outgoing Deborah Tate will be vetted to make sure he or she isn't going to be too much of an obstacle.

(We here at TVNewsday still don't know who the next FCC chairman will be. Washington correspondent Kim McAvoy and I schmoozed mightily at the FCC Chairman's dinner last Tuesday, but learned little. One insider offered this: "It's Blair Levin, unless they decide they need a woman or minority, in which case, it isn't." Levin, an aide to former FCC Reed Hundt during the Clinton years, is now a securities analyst in D.C.)

Unfortunately, the new FCC will not be constrained by Congress. If the new FCC decides to regulate broadcasting to death, it will hear not a peep of protest from its oversight committees.

The lawmakers who ran those committee and who, despite their liberal leanings, understood and appreciated the broadcasting business, will not be there next year.

In what came as a surprise to many, John Dingell (D-Mich.) was ousted from the chairmanship of the House Energy and Commerce Committee this week by Hollywood's Henry Waxman, a man who never met a regulation he didn't like.

Waxman's usurpation also frees up Edward Markey to create all kinds of mischief for broadcasters as chairman of the House Telecommunications Subcommittee. Markey has been stewing for years under the meddlesome and controlling Dingell.

Broadcasters must hope that Markey decides to move to another subcommittee assignment, health or energy.

Over in the Senate, meanwhile, moderate Daniel Inouye is giving up the chairmanship of the Commerce Committee for a better job, chairmanship of the Appropriations Committee. That means Jay Rockefeller will be moving up and taking over Commerce and he has all kinds of | More …