beginning saturday morning at eight eastern through monday morning at eight eastern. nonfiction books all weekend every weekend right here on c-span2. .. >> host: and we are pleased to welcome back to "the communicators" fcc commissioner michael copps. commissioner, thank you for being with us. also joining us here an the table is amy schatz of "the wall

street journal." commissioner, if i could start with the at&t/t-mobile usa acquisition. what do you see as the biggest impediment to that happening, and how long do you see the process taking? >> guest: well, at first, i really don't know how long the process will take. it could be the better part of a year. i don't know that it should take that long, but we'll just have to wait and see with the expectations at the commission are. this is a huge transaction, it's a paradigm-altering transaction insofar as the world of wireless goes. you will remember in the comcast merger that i said at the outset that was a very -- would have been a very steep climb for me. i ended up voting against it. this is maybe even a steeper climb from the standpoint of a lot of power, a lot of influence given to one company in a world where with two companies are going to control, like, 80% of

the spectrum. so i would hope that my colleagues in looking at this transaction in the months ahead will be asking themselves some very serious questions about what residue of competition will be left if this merger is approved. what is the impact going to be on american jobs. i'm trying to find that out. i haven't had a satisfactory answer yet, but there will be time to delve into that, and i hope and trust that we will. there's a lot of money on the table for that. how much of that money's going to end up in europe supporting telecommunications there rather than the united states. so it's a big deal, but as much as anything would kind of -- what kind of troubles me is this just kind of sucks the oxygen out of so many issues that are pending before the federal communications commission. you know, we can chew gum and walk at the same time, i guess, but this effects so much of what

we're doing. i think whether this goes forward or not has an effect on the whole issue of sprem auctions. -- sprem auctions. i think it has an impact on public safety, and the list just goes on and on. so it's a lot to absorb, and, you know, i've been at the commission almost ten years now, and it seems sometimes we're just kind of the federal merger commission. that's because companies bring us so many mergers. it's always the last one, you know, we're not going to be back. but as soon as you approve one, then somebody else is through the door saying, hey, you let the other guy get real big, so you've got to let us, too, or else it's not fair. >> host: commissioner n2005 how did you vote on the at&t/bell south merger? >> guest: well, we had a lot of negotiation back and forth on the bell south merger and managed to avoid tap some network neutrality conditions

and things hike that. it was not -- like that. it was not a happy merger, happy occasion in the final result, but i think we made it better than it would otherwise have been. >> host: and before we get to amy, i just want to read one piece of an editorial, recent editorial this new york times entitled, "looks like a duopoly." this doesn't mean that at&t's proposed purchase of t-mobile should be rejected.

>> guest: well, i think there's a lot of merit in there, but the question is, you know, why do we spend so much time trying to make the what some people would deem unpalatable minimally acceptable. is that the kind of telecommunications market we ought to be working for, is that the best we can do for competition, consumers and jobs? >> host: amy schatz. >> host: so you've dealt with a lot of these mergers in the last ten years that you've been at the commission. >> guest: many, many. >> host: what kind of conditions would you like to see imposed or have you tried to impose -- >> guest: well, i'm not into, certainly conditions. you can probably divine from my initial comments this would be a very steep climb for me in the first place, but i would hope if there's going to be a majority at the commission that is going to approve of this, that we would be, obviously, looking at market by market and what

divestitures might be called for. that's certainly important. i think, certainly, the open internet, network neutrality is important. and just looking at the level of concentration and market power across the board is important. so it's, it comes down to all of the consideration that go into deciding whether this serves the public interest, convenience and necessity. that's our charge, so it's a pretty wide-ranging charge that we have under the statute, and i hope that we will fulfill it. >> host: you were saying you thought -- it's not to derail, at least slow some of the other priorities at the commission whether it's the incentive auctions or maybe the d block. can you explain a little more about how that might happen? >> guest: i think not just at the commission, but perhaps on the hill too. having worked on the hill for 15 years, i'm not going to predict what the hill is going to do, but if we're talking about incentive auctions and things like that, does this change,

does it change the name of the game for that if you're going to have one less competitor in the wireless market, does that make the spectrum incentive of auction idea more or less attractive? with regard to public safety and the d block and who holds how much spectrum and 700 megahertz, i think those are all factors that might have the effect of encouraging some folks to say, well, let's see what happens before we go ahead and act. >> host: nab chair gordon smith was recently on this program, and here's what he had to say about potential spectrum auctions. want to get your reaction to it. >> what your viewers need to understand is the difference between broadcast spectrum the way we utilize it and the way wireless uses it is that when we use it, we're one -- our transmission is one to everyone in a demographic area. it's very efficiently used.

when you look at the way wi-fi does it, if i send you a video on my iphone, it's me to you. it's one to one. it takes a tremendous amount of bandwidth. the truth is we're in the video business. they want to be in the video business. video's what creates the congestion. no one does it more efficiently than we do, and there's probably -- if you took all of broadcast spectrum, there probably isn't enough spectrum in the universe to manage one to one video on every mobile device in the wi-fi/broadband world. >> host: commissioner copps. >> guest: well, i hope we're not getting into, you know, a communications civil war. probably we are, but having to choose i consider myself a friend of broadcasters, particularly small, independent can broadcasters, and i think their utilization of the public spectrum very off serves -- very often serves the nation well.

on the other hand, i understand full well that spectrum needs to be used and utilized, and there are swaths of broadcast spectrum particularly the digital dividend that result from the dtv transition that are not being fully used. certain it is that we need more spectrum for wireless, no question about that. these are very spectrum-hungry devices. but i want to avoid generalizations. i don't think you can say in every instance it serves the public interest to remove spectrum from a broadcaster and give it to, maybe, a wireless duopoly or something like that. i think we have to look at it, you know, instance by instance, market by market and realize that both broadcasters and wireless perform absolutely essential public services in the 21st century and that those who are doing a good job should be recognized for doing a good job, and that includes a lot of

broadcasters. >> host: one of the things the broadcasters have been saying is that there are spectrum holders like cable companies and others who aren't using their spectrum efficiently, if at all. and the fcc has an inventory in that they know, the fcc know who has airwaves, but they don't know if they're using them. do you think there is some merit to the idea of actually looking at whether people are using their airwaves? >> i don't think there's anyone in the united states of america that has the foggiest idea right now how much spectrum is being utilized for what particular purpose, and i think it would be helpful to know that. that does not mean that we should remain motionless or inactive in the months ahead. i think we understand that we need more spectrum for we'reless, but as we -- wireless but as we proceed along this path and before we get to the end game at the end of the road, we ought to have a better idea of what's going on with that spectrum. the commission is making strides toward that with the spectrum dashboard and other initiatives

that it's taking. i apaid those, but we need to do more. >> host: and when -- there's been a lot of talk about a spectrum inventory. is there any drop dead date for that to actually occur? >> guest: no. i think the commission feels that it's making good progress in getting sort of a basic type of inventory up there with the dashboard. there will be a legislative push for spectrum inventory again. we'll see where that goes, but in the meantime, i would hope that we would be using all of our considerable resources to get that inventory going. that's -- it's not an easy task to do this. it's time consuming, it's resource-intensive, it costs a lot of money of shrinking budgets, but i don't know that you have to go out and send a truck into every village in town to measure the spectrum, but we should be doing really a credible sample so we have a good idea, particularly in those markets where there's a spectrum

crunch. what's lying fallow and what could be used for something else. >> host: i want to go back to something you said earlier which is you regret at times the fcc has become the federal merger commission. how do you avoid becoming that merger commission and having to set conditions on every deal that comes before you? is. >> guest: well, you -- it's very difficult, you know? and the private sector drives a lot of this, and, you know, the private sector modus operandi has changed in the telecommunications world and in the media world. just like the rest of the economy, we've gone through enormous concentration in recent years, and there's a mindset out there that all of these much sought-after but seldom-achieved economies and efficiencies are the wave of the future. seldom are they realized in these mergers, but often they are sought. so the private sector drives that. but the commission has or should

have, can have input here, too, in the approach it takes toward mergers. so the department of justice and the federal trade commission and, you know, government spend a lot of time during the first eight years that i was here blessing this kind of consolidation. not just blessing it, but actually encouraging it. so it wasn't just the private sector, it was the public sector encouraging this consolidation while at the same time the commission moved away from a lot of dedication and commitment and had the public interest oversight and regulation. you know, at some point we have to decide whether we're really serious about having competition or not. and if you're going to have this constant trend toward duopoly or monopoly, then b there has to be some rules of the road, there to be some oversight, some regulation. i'm not hesitant to use that term. that's how we looked at

monopolies for a long period of time, if we're serious about fostering competition, then let's get about the job of doing that and have some rules of the road and maybe at that point the private sector and companies will begin to understand that any and all mergers are not going to be automatically rubber stamped or passed with conditions when they come to the federal communications commission. >> host: this is c-span's "communicators" program. our guest is fcc commissioner michael copps. also joining us, amy schatz of "the wall street journal." >> host: the fcc used to have spectrum caps in place to prevent -- >> guest: we did, indeed. >> host: and then it was, i think it was -- might be the power era, they did away with them. do you think it's time to bring them back? >> guest: i was not in favor of that. i think it would have been much better had we continued with spectrum caps and avoided some of the excessive concentration

we've had since then. yes, i think that's something that we could consider. the numbers would have to change, the percentage would have to change probably just given what the inevitable things -- well, the things that did happen in the market. i noticed just the other day offcom in great britain announced it's going to have this enormous auction for, like, 250 megahertz of spectrum, and they're putting limits on the amount any bidder can end up with. and it's premised on the idea that they think there should be at least a minimum of four wholesale competitors in each of those, in that spectrum. >> host: so when you talk about limits on auctions, if we're talking about incentive auctions and actually auctioning off tv airwaves, do you think there might be or there should be any limits in place to prevent or to help increase, continue to have diversity of the airwaves? because you could see that there could be some low power or some

stations may not have -- >> guest: well, that's what i'm worried about. who do you think the origin allocates are going to be who step up and say, okay, we have this incentive auction idea now, and i'm going to participate? i think there's two, probably, and the first is going to be the hard-pressed minority station or diversity station in a big city who's trying its best to serve the public interest, but the economics just aren't working, the advertising's not there and try as they might, they're going to have to -- they may want to take advantage of this. the other is going to be those hedge funds and the banks and folks that own the big stations. and to them it's just, it's just a numbers game, you know? >> if they look at it and say, well, keep it, we can make this much money, sell the licensing or participate in this auction we'll make 15 cents more, i can tell you which one they're going to take. they're going to take the 15 cents more because that's just the dynamic they operate under, and whatever happened to the public interest?

>> host: commissioner copps, there was a recent news report on the rollout and deployment of the broadband national plan and that it was behind schedule or not fully at schedule. do you think that's a fair report, and if fcc could, how would you increase the deployment? >> guest: well, i'm, i'm hopeful that we're on track. it took a while to develop that broadband strategy, national broadband plan, but it provided a road map for eight years. we had done nothing in the way of developing a broadband strategy for the united states of america, so we now have that strategy, and i believe that this year of 2011 can really be a good year. now, that might be counterintuitive, and people might say the political dynamic is changing, you're not going to get anything done. i don't believe that. i think there's a lot of bipartisan interest in finally stepping up to universal service and intercarrier compensation and these other con view

luted -- convoluted issues, and i think if you look at the agenda of the fcc, we're starting to get into implementing this in a substantive way. i think we can do a lot year, and i'm afraid if we don't, when is the next chance going to be for us to do this? i think there's sort of an alignment of the stars. it's not perfect, but it's sufficient to allow us to move ahead and to make some progress. so by the end of this year i would like to see the fcc have approved a transition plan, a fairly detailed transition plan on universal service and intercarrier compensation. that doesn't mean every last t has to be crossed or i dotted or number filled in, but pretty explicit because companies have to know, investors have to know, innovators have to know, and it would be nice for consumers to know, too, where we're going with these two, two very important programs. and then i would like to see some reports and orders passed getting us on with the job. and i think that that is doable,

and i think there's a commitment there in the commission to get that done, and i certainly hope so. >> host: in your view, what's the biggest obstacle to usf reform? >> guest: just people used to another system for many, many years, a system that is not serving the public interest well, is not responsive to the needs of the broadband era and the degeneratival era, but -- digital era, but people are used to doing business that way. and you have to change mindsets, and you have to get everybody to understand everybody's going to have to sacrifice a little bit. the rules of the game are not going to be the same because we cannot afford for them to be the same. we're in a different era, a different technological period, and the systems are going to have to undergo some fairly significant change. so really getting people to sit down around a table and think bottom line where you can come

out. i don't want to go around and have sessions where people are just bringing us their santa claus wish list of what they'd like in universal service or intercarrier comp. we've done that for years and years and years, and we're still at the same place. i think we have to encourage some sessions here the next few months where we sit with them or they sit first with themselves and we get what people can live with, and we take all that back and in a short period of time come up with our proposed rules. >> host: so far the fcc's really only talking on usf about the distribution side. hasn't really said much about the contribution side. so what would you say is the impact that this is going to mean on consumers? >> guest: i think we need to look at the contribution side, and i think if we do it right, it will be a good impact for everybody. but if we had broadband not only on the distribution part of usf,

but on the contribution part, it would mean considerable extra money, and it should be there because broadband, these providers are selling the triple play. they're making more money. so i think there's some obligation for them to participate in support of a universal system that is going to be, hopefully, serving the needs of, serving the needs of the broadband era. so i am, i am for including that. i am for congress passing something that would allow collection of intrastate revenues based on intrastate revenue. it would make an enormous addition to the wisdom of the program. i think it would increase the revenue base from something like 68 to $238 billion. it's enormous. it would reduce the contribution factor by order of 70%. this is a fixable system. it's a doable system, but we've just got to make sure people

know we're serious, and it's about to happen, and let's get here. let's get to your final last-best offers. >> host: as we enter the political season of 2012, the media access project has proposed changes to the disclosure rules for political broadcast. here's what they write: >> host: do you see changes in the sponsorship rules? >> guest: i certainly hope so, and i've been talking about this for months and months. i think if you've got an ad on tv and you see this little line comes up and it says paid for by citizens for spacious skies and amber waves of of grain, but if you really knew who was sponsoring it, it was a chemical

company that was refusing to clean up a toxic dump, i think citizens and consumers have a right to know that, and i think it's a disservice that they don't. folks are trying to buy elections. there was, you know, like $2 billion, i think, nearly $2 billion that went into political advertisements, most of them attack ads, in the last session or the last election cycle. so i'm not trying to cut off those ads, but i think media access project is headed down a good road. i think the time has come for this. i think people have a right to know who's putting that on the air, you know? if you put a bottle of coca-cola right here on this program, somebody will say, well, you have to product placement, or you paid for that, something like that. here we're talking about the future of democracy and people who are trying to influence elections, don't people have just as much or more of a right to know that? i think they do. so i think this is a bipartisan, small d democratic, patriotic,

right thing for us to do, and i salute the media access project for trying to elevate the attention of this matter at the federal communications commission, and i hope that my colleagues will follow up and will take a really serious look and do something about it. >> host: have you got any assurances from them that they might do something on it? >> guest: no. >> host: okay. one thing that you've talked a lot about over the years is media ownership, and that's one thing we all know the fcc's behind on, the ever-present annual review or semi-- >> guest: quadrennial. >> host: so you're behind for this year, and there's also supposed to be a future of media report coming out soon. what would you like to see the recommendations be in that report? >> guest: strong and hard hitting. i'd like to see it come out soon or the future of the media report will end up being the past of the media report. it's been pending for a while. we need to be more active on media. as you know, this has been kind

of the thing that drives me at the fcc to make sure that we get our media right, particularly in this age when there's so much change going on. you've had all of this consolidation, downsizing of newsrooms, firing of journalists, investigative journalism put on the endangered species list. we're in deep, deep trouble, i think, because of the lack of investive journalism -- investigative journalism, internet, it's the whole thing we really have to be addressing that. so i think we need to come with some good, hard-hitting reports, recommendations. i would love to see some return to public interest licensing process for broadcast licensees. that doesn't solve the whole problem, but it begins to solve some of the problem, and i think, i think the licensing process ought to be, go pack to where it used to be every three

years. you know, for years and years it was three years. now it's eight years. we used to have guidelines and public interest guidelines. you'd look at it and see if station was with making an effort to serve the public interest. those are almost all gone. it's basically postcard renewal. you send in this your postcard, you get your license. that's no way to treat the stewardship of the public airwaves. so i would like to see us have some public interest guidelines to encourage localism and diversity, and i think part of those guidelines need to be news-sent rick. not interfering in the content of the news, but putting adequate, putting more resources, are they investing in the news that's important to them, or are they cutting back? i think that would be one of the factors that we would look at. but we really need to do something about this because i don't think we can afford another four or five years of this hemorrhaging of reporting and journalism that we've been through without doing grave injustice and damage to our

country. >> host: any comment on your former colleague, michael powell, going over to hold the ftca? >> guest: well, i congratulate him and did congratulate him. i worked with michael, we didn't always agree, but he knows a lot. he's experienced, smart, personable, so i'm sure the cable folks will welcome him with open arms, and i will look forward to seeing a little bit more of him, maybe, in the months ahead. >> host: i'm sure he'll also enjoy doing the media ownership review again, too, as we move forward on that. [laughter] >> guest: déjà vu all over again. >> host: it really is. he had such a good time with that, so i'm sure that will be good times for him. you know, getting back to that, though, i mean, the rules he had proposed are still in the court. the ken martin -- kevin martin rules are also still in the court. now we're talking about another quadrennial review where you change the rules somewhat to

increase -- >> guest: right. >> host: -- you know, the public interest aspects. i mean, do you think at this point given the fact that all of these things are already in court that it's even possible for the fcc to move forward? >> >> guest: yes, i do, and i think you have to kind of segment this a little bit. i think the ownership rules are kind of structural and go to the numbers, and we can do some of that, but congress may have to do some of that. it's kind of a time consuming thing. but we can make a down payment on media reform, and that gets less to the structural rules and more to the behavioral rules and the public interest guidelines and the approach that i'm talking about. and the fcc has the authority to do that right now. we could call a notice of proposed rulemaking. in fact, we've got some localism already out there and bring it to a vote and do it. and we should have done that by now. i don't want to see media become the orphan child of the commission, but in point of fact we need to do more on these

important media questions than the commission has thus far done. >> host: and finally, commissioner copps, if you could reflect on your ten years on the commission, perhaps give us a hint of what your future plans are, and what structural changes would you like to see in how the fcc operates? >> guest: well, you know, i haven't done a lot of reminiscing because we have such an important year ahead, and i think we can make so much progress. i just hope we don't have a government shutdown. we're all out of a job. i'd like to see us all keep working. but as i look back over the ten years here, i think making the media questions a matter of public issue and public moment although we have not got to a satisfactory resolution is important, and no matter what i do in the years ahead, i will be somehow associated with working on those issues and pushing for action if we don't get the kind of action i would like this year, i think i was pleased to play