Yesterday the Supreme Court upheld a lower court ruling that limits the number of television stations, radio stations and newspapers a media company can own in a single market. The lower-court decision from last June was a major defeat for the nation's largest media corporations, throwing out FCC rules issued in June 2003 that would have significantly loosened media ownership restrictions over television stations and newspapers. The Bush administration did not join the appeal of the ruling.

Pete Tridish of the Prometheus Radio Project, one of the lead organizations in the case against the FCC, said "The Supreme Court is affirming the demands of millions of people in the United States: the FCC needs to take a close look at its rules about media ownership and the assumptions guiding these rules."

Not all the FCC commissioners were dismayed by this ruling. FCC Commissioner Jonathan Adelstein stated, "This decision is a rare victory for the public over some of the most powerful corporations in America. The court's decision puts the issue of media consolidation right back in the FCC's hands and gives us an opportunity for a fresh start, so we better get it right this time." While commissioners Michael Copps and Jonathan Adelstein have been opposed to further deregulation, the same cannot be said of the other two FCC commissioners or former FCC Chairman Michael Powell. Powell stepped down in March but it is unlikely that his successor will be significantly more responsive to the public rather than that the corporate media due to the fact that FCC Chair is appointed by the President.

In another FCC related issue, Free Press has launched an e-mail campaign opposing a new bill that would prevent local governments from offering broadband service in competition to private companies except to "remedy market failures." According to Free Press Executive Director Josh Silver, the bill introduced late last month by Texas Republican and former Southwestern Bell executive Rep. Pete Sessions, would "take away the right of cities and towns across the country to provide citizens with universal, low-cost Internet access." The language of the proposed bill says:

Neither any State or local government, nor any entity affiliated with such a government, shall provide any telecommunications, telecommunications service, information service, or cable service in any geographic area within the jurisdiction of such government in which a corporation or other private entity that is not affiliated with any State or local government is offering a substantially similar service.

Many municipalities, including Grand Rapids, are looking at the option of a city wide WI- FI network. While corporate lobbyists have tried to portray public broadband as a failure, the facts do not bear this out. In fact, the current commercial broadband market has failed to bring affordable access in 2005 while causing the US to drop from 4th to 13th place in global rankings of broadband Internet usage and the latest mobile-phone technology.