[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 145 (1999), Part 15]
[Senate]
[Page 20740]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]



                           CBS-VIACOM MERGER

  Mr. WELLSTONE. Mr. President, before going to the main topic of my 
remarks, I wish to briefly speak about a story today in the papers that 
I just think Senators, Democrats and Republicans, must take note of. 
This is the report. Top executives of CBS and VIACOM will be huddling 
today with top officials of the Federal Communications Commission. CBS-
VIACOM executives will be lobbying the FCC to approve their proposed 
merger and to relax FCC restrictions on media concentration.
  Mr. President, I think that FCC Chairman Kennard has done an 
excellent job, but I do believe this private meeting would be improper 
and inappropriate. I think the meeting should be held in public. I 
think the public needs to know what is going on. I say this because I 
cannot think of anything more frightening in a representative democracy 
than to continue to see this consolidation of media, these media 
mergers, and this concentration of power over the flow of information.
  I think this is a terribly important question. I think it goes to the 
heart of the functioning of our democracy. Our democracy depends upon 
citizen access to a wide and divergent range of views and information. 
We depend upon a free and independent media that will hold both private 
and public power accountable to people. This dramatic surge in media 
concentration makes this more difficult. It makes it more difficult for 
our media to perform these essential functions. I believe we are seeing 
a breathtaking, frightening concentration of power in the media over 
the flow of information, and I think it constitutes a direct threat to 
our democracy.
  I hope this meeting and this debate will take place publicly and that 
there will be meaningful coverage by the major media in our country of 
this proposed merger of CBS and Viacom. The public needs to be engaged 
in this debate. This is a serious and important question. Media 
concentration is a real threat to our representative democracy.
  (Mr. BURNS assumed the Chair.)

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