Evangelist of the Marketplace

By Richard Stengel

The FCC's Mark Fowler wants to strip away TV regulations

When he was spinning platters at a poky rock-'n'-roll station in Gainesville, Fla., during the late '60s, 'Madman Mark," as he was then known, chafed at the public service programs he was required to air. So he buried them in the doldrums of the early morning hours. Fifteen years later, balding, bespectacled Mark Fowler still does not much care for public service programming. But now, as chairman of the Federal Communications Commission, he can do something about it. Indeed, Fowler's goal is to free broadcasters from nearly all of the thousands of FCC rules, policies and doctrines requiring that "the public interest be served." He rejects the fundamental FCC tenet that broadcasters must demonstrate social responsibility in exchange for using the public air waves. "Television," asserts the man in charge of regulating the nation's 1,090 TV stations, "is just another appliance. It's a toaster with pictures."

For Fowler, the business of broadcasters is business. "Let the marketplace decide," is his anthem; "bigness is not necessarily badness," the chorus. He fervently believes that if broadcasters were allowed to battle it out, free of regulation, the result would be "more innovation, more choice, better quality and lower prices." In his Utopia, the audience would regulate programming by switching channels. "Let the public's interest determine the public interest," Fowler is fond of declaring.

A meager one-hour-a-week TV watcher, Fowler, 42, came by his libertarian philosophy gradually. The son of a Toronto tobacco wholesaler, he moved to the U.S. at ten and later went to college and law school at the University of Florida. During those years, he supported himself as a disc jockey and program director for small-market radio stations. In 1968 he traveled to Indiana to work on Robert Kennedy's presidential campaign. Later, moving to Washington to join the city's busy network of communications lawyers, he came to the conclusion that the complex FCC rules "weren't really serving people well." In 1976, having moved further to the right politically, he signed on as communications counsel to Presidential Candidate Ronald Reagan. He performed the same service in 1980, and after Reagan's victory was duly rewarded with the chairmanship of the FCC.

Fowler's goals are twofold: to end the financial restrictions on how broadcasting companies do business and to strip away Government control of program content. Fowler has asked Congress to repeal the Fairness Doctrine, a touchstone of communications policy that obligates broadcasters to air opposing views on issues of public importance. He wants to eradicate the "777 Rule," which aims to promote diversity by preventing companies from owning more than seven AM, seven FM and seven TV stations. He has proposed an end to the 16-min.-per-hr. limit on television commercials. Fowler also wants to do away with the comparative renewal process, which verifies whether broadcasters are meeting minimal requirements to air nonentertainment fare such as news, public affairs and educational programming. In recent weeks the FCC has been at the center of a highly publicized controversy over the Financial Interest and Syndication Rule, which prevents the networks from owning and syndicating their own programs. Fowler wants to rescind it; but President Reagan, siding with the Hollywood producers who now hold the rights to most network programs, has urged a two-year moratorium on any changes in the rule.

In this as in other issues, Fowler's detractors say that his motto, "Let the marketplace decide," translates as "Let the industry decide." They contend that his stated intention of making the broadcast media as unfettered as print ignores a fundamental distinction: the number of broadcast outlets is limited, and the Government decides who gets them. "The reason for regulation," notes former FCC Chairman Charles Ferris, "is still the scarcity of the spectrum and the fact that not everyone can participate."

Fowler counters that the proliferation of new delivery systems--cable, direct broadcasting from satellites, low-power stations with a range of 15 miles--will ensure diversity and hence fairness. Moreover, he believes that commercial broadcasters should pay a fee to support educational and public service-oriented programming on public TV. But the voices of the new technologies, points out Daniel Ritchie, chairman of Westinghouse Broadcasting and Cable Inc., are still a whisper. Says Ritchie: "To paraphrase Lincoln Steffens, I have seen the future, and it's still the future. The simple fact is that cable exists for only about 40% of the people in the country. And many of the other much-talked-about new technologies are still just that: much talked about."

Fowler's principal foe in the regulatory forest is Colorado Democrat Timothy Wirth, chairman of the House Telecommunications Subcommittee. Wirth contends that Fowler has been far more vigorous in unshackling the brobdingnagians of broadcast row than in stimulating the entry of new entrepreneurs. Fowler's argument that content regulations constitute censorship and violate the First Amendment has one glaring flaw, says Wirth: the Supreme Court has consistently found them constitutional.

Wirth has introduced a bill requiring the networks to provide an hour a weekday of educational programming for children under twelve. Now, he says, there is only an hour per week. Fowler agrees that there is a "societal need" for children's programming but insists that the Government has no business requiring it. Wirth is also considering legislation that would make the renewal process more objective. The idea is to establish quotas for public service programming--say, 2% children's, 5% news--that would have to be met by all stations.

Despite their differences, Wirth, like nearly all of Fowler's critics, finds him engaging and open to argument. Fowler may be a purist in his principles, but he is a pragmatist in his dealings with politicians. Says he, in a voice that retains a deejay's mellifluous inflections: "There are times when you have to compromise; you can't get everything you want. You should not be too much of a martyr or anoint yourself for sainthood." At the moment, Fowler seems willing to settle for being an evangelist. --By Richard Stengel. Reported by Peter Ainslie/New York and Jay Branegan/Washington

With reporting by Peter Ainslie, Jay Branegan This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so viewer discretion is required.