BOB GARFIELD: This week, the president announced that Kevin Martin was his choice for chairman of the Federal Communications Commission, and since Martin is currently on the FCC, he doesn't need to be confirmed by the Senate. Thus, the person who has the most influence on who owns the media and who's on it slips into his chair pretty much with no questions asked. Long allied with the White House, Martin served as legal counsel to George W. Bush during the 2000 campaign. In the four years he's served on the FCC, Martin has proved to be a whiz at coalition building, and a hawk on indecency. Bill McConnell is a senior writer for Broadcasting & Cable magazine. He joins us once again. Bill, welcome back to the show.

BILL McCONNELL: Glad to be here. Thanks for having me.

BOB GARFIELD: So, a coalition-building whiz - which I suppose means that he's on friendly terms with Democratic commissioners Michael Copps and Jonathan Adelstein. That's kind of an interesting role for a well-known ally of President Bush.

BILL McCONNELL: Well, what sets Kevin Martin apart from his predecessor, Michael Powell, is that he is more willing to engage his fellow commissioners in developing sort of the early stages of FCC policy. Powell rankled a lot of his colleagues because he would sort of keep his ideas close to his chest while they were under development, and then just lay them on the table when it was time for a vote. Kevin, himself, bristled under that sort of regime, and a couple of times he reached out to his Democratic colleagues on the commission to really, essentially, perform a coup against Michael Powell.

BOB GARFIELD: Yeah, tell me about the policy issues in which he did find common cause with the Democrats.

BILL McCONNELL: He was certainly of like mind with Democrat Michael Copps on the indecency crackdown. Although Powell got a lot of press as sort of being the instigator of all this, it was really political pressure that got Powell moving on that. Martin, on the other hand, really does support the idea of the indecency crackdown, as did Michael Copps, and to a lesser extent, Jonathan Adelstein, both Democrats. Also, I think Kevin is more of a like mind with the Democrats on trying to find ways that will preserve localism in broadcasting, although Kevin does differ with the Democrats on whether to allow more media consolidation itself.

BOB GARFIELD: Well, let's talk about media consolidation. The FCC's initiatives to make it easier for large media companies to own more and more were reversed by the Congress and the courts. Do you think Martin will try to pick up that ball?

BILL McCONNELL: Well, he'll have to, because the deregulation that was approved by the FCC in 2003 has been remanded back to the FCC for a rewrite. It'll be interesting to see how Martin takes that up. He was very supportive of deregulation in 2003. You would think that this latest court decision sort of hamstrings him a little bit. So it will be interesting to see if he is able to pursue the agenda he wants and still sort of navigate the court ruling.

BOB GARFIELD: Commissioner Powell took it on the chin over the question of indecency, taking the blame for what some believe is a puritanical stance on the part of the FCC to regulate content. But, in fact, Commissioner Martin was much more of an activist on that subject than the previous chairman himself.

BILL McCONNELL: That's correct. He would have liked to have imposed higher fines on a lot of the broadcasters who were fined this year. He has also said that the broadcasters should do more voluntarily, by re-instituting a family viewing time across all of the networks, every night during primetime. This is something that Martin, I think, will keep the pressure on and really have his heart and, and a lot of enthusiasm in the effort.

BOB GARFIELD: Including his advocacy for the regulation of content for cable and satellite, which puzzles me, because they are not broadcast on the public spectrum, and therefore, I thought, out of the purview of the FCC.

BILL McCONNELL: Kevin has kind of avoided that issue in the past couple of weeks, and hasn't really spelled out what he's thinking in that area. Senate Commerce Committee Chairman Ted Stevens has said cable ought to be regulated pretty much in the same way broadcasters are. In the past weeks, Stevens has kind of backed off of that, although some of his fellow lawmakers on the Commerce Committee have picked up the ball and said yeah, let, let's go full speed ahead. I think Martin, on the issue of cable and satellite, is willing to let Congress take the lead as well as take the heat on that issue.

BOB GARFIELD: One thing you can say about Michael Powell is that he was more or less consistent. He was not all that eager to impose large indecency fines, because of his laissez-faire, libertarian philosophy, and the same way that he was more or less hands off on media consolidation. Kevin Martin, he's historically quite bullish on the regulation of content, which flies very much in the face of a deregulatory environment for media consolidation. How does he square that circle?

BILL McCONNELL: I think his views are sort of reflective of sort of the internal contradiction in the Republican Party itself. There are a lot of Republicans who are laissez-faire, libertarian - especially in their focus on economics. There's another wing of the Republican Party that is more the family values crowd, and is not really afraid of regulating social behavior, including the way the media behaves. So, I think Kevin's a little more reflective of that contradiction in the GOP itself.

BOB GARFIELD: Help me get inside the new commissioner's head. It has been suggested, in print, that his ability to get along with his Democratic colleagues was less indicative of an open mind than of a sort of Machiavellian scheming to advance himself to the chairmanship. Do you think that's fair?

BILL McCONNELL: To an extent it is. Kevin Martin certainly knows how to open political opportunities for himself. He got into this job at the FCC because of his ties to the Bush White House that he developed as a Bush campaign lawyer in 2000. He was one of the organizers of the vote recount in Florida. He worked so tirelessly on all of this that he left his car in Austin, Texas on election night, flew straight to Florida, and then to Washington - and his car stayed in Austin, Texas that whole time, and his dad eventually had to go pick it up with a friend. Drove all the way from North Carolina, only to find out that Kevin's battery was dead. So, Kevin has been very focused on how to make President Bush look good, and how to make Kevin Martin look good.

BOB GARFIELD: Okay, well Bill, thanks very much.

BILL McCONNELL: Thank you very much.

BOB GARFIELD: Bill McConnell is a senior writer for Broadcasting & Cable.

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