His hands-off regulatory approach mostly pleased Internet operators, especially those making their way in the growing Internet telephony industry, but he also helped hit broadcasters like Howard Stern and his bosses with some of the heaviest indecency fines ever seen. Now, Federal Communications Commission chairman Michael Powell plans to step down “soon,” according to reports published January 21.
The reports cited unnamed FCC officials saying that the son of outgoing Secretary of State Colin Powell would not finish his term, which expires officially in 2007. Powell said he expects to step down sometime in March.
In his official statement announcing his departure, Powell made no reference to the FCC crackdown on indecent broadcasts on both television and radio, choosing to highlight the commission's work on developing laws appropriate for emerging technologies that took place during his tenure as chairman.
"The seeds of our policies are taking firm root in the marketplace and are starting to blossom," Powell said. "The use of cell phones, digital televisions, personal video recorders, and digital music players, is exploding. These devices are increasingly connected anytime, anywhere by a wide variety of broadband networks enabling a host of competitive services and new applications. Our children will inherit this exciting future."
Powell did, however, address indecency fines when speaking at a symposium last July. "It's the most uncomfortable area you'd ever want to work in, enforcement," Powell said. “I'm a big believer in the First Amendment, but often I'm incredibly uneasy about lines we have to draw. No one takes pleasure in trying to decide whether this potty-mouth word or that potty-mouth word is a violation of the law."
At that time, the FCC was grappling with a $500,000 fine it slapped CBS with over an incident involving the slight exposure of singer Janet Jackson’s breast during a halftime show telecast at the Super Bowl football game.
Perhaps needless to say, Stern himself was anything but unhappy that Powell planned to step down. “This,” he said on his nationally syndicated radio show, after the news about Powell broke, “is a great day for broadcasting.”
What a surprise. Three months earlier, Stern said increasing government scrutiny prodded him to leave commercial network radio at the end of this year, signing a five-year deal with Sirius Satellite Radio worth $500 million. Clear Channel and Viacom – which owns Infinity Broadcasting, producers of Stern’s show – have paid millions to settle government complaints against the so-called shock jock.
But Powell leaving doesn’t exactly mean Humble Howard is entirely happy. “God help us with what’s next,” he said during his show. “God knows who [President Bush] is going to appoint” to succeed Powell. Stern also said he didn’t think it made a difference, for his purposes, whether a Republican or a Democrat was in the White House.
The news came almost a week after Powell ordered an investigation into payments made by the Department of Education to conservative commentator Armstrong Williams to promote the Bush Administration’s “No Child Left Behind” initiative, which Williams failed to disclose at first, provoking Powell and other FCC commissioners to denounce what they called “political payola.”
Powell’s expected resignation announcement also came shortly after Ohio became the second state behind California to sue the FCC for holding Internet telephony as closer to interstate e-mail than to in-state telephony, thus taking away states’ authority to regulate voice-over Internet protocol business. Minnesota and New York are expected to follow Ohio and California’s lead.
Last month, the FCC agreed not just to give fliers high-speed Internet connections while they’re airborne, but the commission also agreed to look into relaxing the incumbent ban on cell phone use while airborne.
"The world of wireless telecommunications has seen immense technological and marketplace developments in the last decade," Powell said about the high-speed airborne Net connections. "During that time, however, our rules for the 800 MHz commercial air-ground service has been locked in a narrowly defined technological and regulatory box and have kept passengers from using their wireless devices on planes. Nearly every party in the air-ground proceeding has commented that the existing band plan and our rules have hindered the provision of services that are desired by the public onboard aircraft."
