A simple case of local competitors trying to stay hip? Not necessarily.

Critics fear the worst from a 3-2 vote of the Republican-controlled Federal Communications Commission today to relax decades-old rules restricting media ownership. The decision adopts a series of changes favored by media companies that will allow them, among other things, to own multiple media outlets in the same market.

That sets up a nightmare scenario that some fear in the future: A world where "rival" local TV stations and newspapers may not really be rivals, and the local media may not really be totally local either.

"The same company that owned the radio station and newspaper also owned these [TV] stations," the billboard and the concert venue, said John Nichols, co-founder of Free Press, a media reform network protesting the rules changes, describing a worst-case scenario.

"Nobody local — nobody — said this [song's artist] sounds like an interesting person that people should hear about," Nichols added. "It was a marketing decision made by someone in a distant office, by someone who may have never set foot in the community."

Nichols — co-author of Our Media, Not Theirs: The Democratic Struggle Against Corporate Media and editor of The Capital Times newspaper in Madison, Wis. — envisions a similar scenario for news consumers, who could spend a day scanning radio, television, newspaper and Internet outlets for local news developments and only get coverage controlled by a single unified newsroom.

‘Still … Checks and Balances’

But media companies and some Federal Communications Commission officials say loosening media ownership restrictions will make it easier to bring high-quality programming to small towns at less cost, adding that critics' worst Big Brother-ish visions are way over the top.

"All of the transactions that would take place after new rules were adopted would still go through antitrust review by the Department of Justice, as well as FCC review," said Richard Diamond, a spokesman for FCC Commissioner Michael Powell, who supported the rule revisions. "There's still going to be checks and balances."

FCC officials say the old rules were largely written back in the days when ABC, NBC and CBS alone dominated the airwaves, and therefore are antiquated and repeatedly have been defeated in court by the media companies. They add they are bound by a congressional order to regularly re-evaluate the rules and adjust them to the modern era of cable, satellites and the Internet.

But diverse critics — including the National Organization for Women, the National Rifle Association, Common Cause, the Rainbow Coalition, dissident FCC commissioners and even media moguls Barry Diller and Ted Turner — have been howling in protest over revisions they say go too far.

"If you want a homogenized music, if you want no localism in your political viewpoint, if you want no localism in your coverage, fine, vote for the changes," Michael Copps, an FCC commissioner who wanted a delay in the vote to allow more public debate, said recently.

The FCC has received hundreds of thousands of protest e-mails and letters.

"I think this issue will move from the FCC and into the courts and into the Congress," Nichols said. "Frankly, I think the people who pushed these rule changes made a big mistake because they have energized the people. … Media has never before been an issue in this country. It is now becoming an issue."

‘They Picked the Wrong Guy’

A primary target of public ire is Rupert Murdoch, chairman of News Corp., identified in a television and print campaign as the man who "wants to control the news in America."

However, a spokesman for News Corp., the international media company that owns the Fox network, The New York Post, the Fox News Channel and several other cable channels, and is acquiring the DirecTV satellite service, said opponents of homogenized media "picked the wrong guy" in Murdoch.

"I don't think anyone could debate that in the American media market, no single company has introduced more choice in the last two decades than News Corp.," said the spokesman, Andrew Butcher. "News is a big moneymaker for us, so we've poured a huge amount of money and resources into our local news, and introduced a lot of competition between the two stations" that separately produce newscasts in New York City.

In written comments to the FCC, Disney, the corporate parent of ABCNEWS.com, said it "supports broad and principled deregulation of the FCC's broadcast ownership rules" because existing rules are outdated. GE, parent of NBC, and Viacom Inc., parent of CBS, did not return phone calls Friday seeking comment.

As a group, media companies have essentially suggested the potential growth of their holdings may cause less harm to the public in an environment of multiple media outlets and 500-channel cable than it would have in the days of three major television networks and low-powered independent local stations.

Will Anyone Really Notice?

Robert Thompson, director of the center for the study of popular television at Syracuse University, agrees some people might not even notice increased corporate domination of local media.

"It could be that a lot of people are simply not going to complain much," he said. "They'd actually rather watch a rerun of Friends than local programming.

"One of the reasons we've got bland programming on radio is that people complain about bad radio, but that's what they listen to … more than stuff that's edgy," he added.

He noted that radio was largely deregulated in 1996, with Clear Channel and other companies then buying large station clusters in local markets. Cross-owner deals or legal waivers in Syracuse, Los Angeles and other markets already have some television competitors sharing local news reporters and resources, he added.

Click here for more examples — including one that jeopardized public safety and another that forced a programming decision on 42 radio stations.

"It's not as though we were at point A and June 3 is going to bring us to point B," Thompson said. "We've been going down this path for a long time. This is a big step further down this path. … If these things didn't pass on June 2, it's not as if a rainbow would descend upon the United States and we'd suddenly enter an age of great local journalism."

Thomson believes times have changed, and those wary of media consolidation, himself included, might need to offer a viable alternative for revising ownership rules.

"They know what they want," he said of the big media companies. "We have a utopian idea of what we want things to be like, which they never really were like. We have a dystopian idea of what things could be like, which they really won't reach just under these rules."

End of Local Culture?

But Nichols fears if regulations on big media companies continue to loosen, true local news, culture and discourse might fade away. He wonders whether a modern-day Elvis could emerge from Memphis, if Cajun music could still be nurtured in Louisiana, or if other regional trends could continue to shape American culture.

"When you have a one-size fits all national media, you lose that," Nichols said. "It's out of those local markets that some of our best music, some of our greatest trends in literature have come from."