http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/business/209718_fccmedia28.html

Bush administration quits fight over media ownership


SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER STAFF AND NEWS SERVICES

WASHINGTON -- Media companies hoping to expand their TV station holdings and to own TV stations and newspapers in the same markets suffered a setback yesterday when the Bush administration decided to abandon its challenge of a ruling that blocked the relaxation of media ownership rules.


The Justice Department will not ask the Supreme Court to review a decision last year by a federal appeals court in Philadelphia that sharply criticized the attempt to deregulate and ordered the Federal Communications Commission to reconsider its action. The decision is a final slap at Michael Powell, the outgoing chairman of the FCC, who had advocated the changes.


The dispute over media ownership rules has been closely watched in Seattle, where owners of the city's two major newspapers -- locked in a continuing legal dispute over their joint publishing agreement -- have expressed diametrically opposed views on the issue.


In filings with the FCC, both The Hearst Corp., which owns the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, and Hearst-Argyle Television Inc., which owns 25 TV stations and is majority owned by The Hearst Corp., have supported lifting restrictions on media ownership.