Everything's in play

摘要

On Aug. 5, 1999, the FCC for the first time agreed to permit a single company to own two television stations in a single market, so-called duopolies. Six days later, CBS Chairman Mel Karmazin visited Viacom Chairman Sumner Redstone to talk about what kind of deals they could do, now that the overlapping signals of their TV stations presented an opportunity rather than an obstacle. On Sept. 5, Viacom declared that it would acquire CBS for $37.3 billion. No one envisions such an immediate and dramatic reaction to last week's startling attack on federal media ownership rules, a court decision that strikes the prohibition against owning a TV station and cable system in the same market and also casts doubt on the federal TV-station ownership cap.