During the years 1983 and 1984, the “7 Station” rule became the subject of FCC review. It took some time, however, before the rules were changed, and when they were, it was in piecemeal form. My father, who was a member of the Broadcast Regulatory Review Committee, which met regularly with the FCC to discuss deregulation of the broadcast industry, said, “I figured something was going to happen down the road, so we’ve been saving our cash.”
Some Congressmen called for hearings on the matter, among them U.S. Rep. Matthew F. McHugh (D-28th District, where Park Broadcasting was located), who said the FCC decision raised a serious policy question, and that Congress should hold hearings and make policy judgments on it. “The real issue is whether the decision by the FCC will have the effect of a major concentration of ownership in the hands of a few large media conglomerates,” he said.
As reported by Helen Mundell of the Ithaca Journal, McHugh said he’s not as concerned about the rule change allowing one owner to have 36 stations as he is about another FCC decision which would remove the limits altogether in 1990. If Congress doesn’t act, the FCC rule change will become law 30 days after the decision is published in the Federal Registry.
Her article, reprinted with permission from the Ithaca Journal, also engaged in a little political criticism, pointing out that: Park recently contributed $1,000 to McHugh’s campaign for re-election. McHugh is running against Republican Constance E. Cook, a former Assemblywoman from Ithaca. McHugh said he thinks it is the first time Park has contributed to his campaign. But Park said he thinks he gave once before.
Asked why he contributed to a Democrat’s campaign when it is assumed he’s a Republican, Park said he doesn’t always vote a straight ticket. Park said he thinks McHugh “is doing a very good job. I supported his opponents three or four times, and he always won, so I decided I might just as well support the guy who’s doing the job.” Asked if there is any connection between the contribution and possible hearings on the FCC decision, McHugh laughed. “His $1,000 won’t buy my vote.”5 But the rules did change, and the limits on the television stations that could be owned came to be based on size of audience. An owner could acquire a TV station if the acquisition, when combined with other stations owned, did not reach, on a combined basis, more than 35 percent of the total national audience.
The rules on the limits on ownership of radio stations were also relaxed, then relaxed again. Now the rules focus not on the number of stations owned but on the size of the markets and the audience reached. Radio limits depend on how many other stations are in the market. It is difficult to explain how this evolved in a simple way but, for example, in a market with at least forty-five stations, one owner can own as many as eight stations; in a market with thirty to forty-four stations, one owner can own up to seven stations, and the FCC formula goes on. When the restrictions loosened, my father had $100 million earmarked for expansion, but no intention to rush out to try to find stations, since he knew the prices paid by the major broadcast networks and larger corporations would be astronomical. He did, however, buy one more radio station about ten years after his penultimate purchase of WONO FM, the radio station that made him first to reach the old FCC limit. All of my father’s TV stations were CBS affiliates except the UHF in Utica, which was ABC, and WSLS in Roanoke, which was NBC. The majority of his radio stations were ABC affiliates. He crowned his broadcast group in 1986 with the purchase of KWLD AM / KFMW FM in Waterloo, IA and the popular WPAT AM/FM, which covered New York City from Clifton, NJ. This brought his final broadcasting tally to seven television and, because he sold four radio stations in Duluth and Roanoke between 1977 and 1985, back up to twenty-one radio stations, and ended his expansion in the broadcasting field.
And while all this was taking place, from 1964 on, Johnnie Babcock, when he wasn’t traveling, was sitting across from my father’s big desk. Johnnie describes his experiences during those years of rapid expansion.