FCC (Federal Communications Commission) chairman Michael Powell is apparently deeply hurt because no one understands him.

On June 2, the FCC decided to allow broadcasters to own 'local' stations transmitting to up to 45% of the national audience, up from 35%. The rules would also lift the ban on a company's owning a newspaper and a tv station in the same market.

But today, Powell suffered truly ignominious defeat when the US congress voted 400-21 against.

It's not over yet, however. "The Bush administration ... vowed to fight congressional efforts to roll back a new rule allowing television broadcasters to own stations that reach almost half the national audience," said a July 24 Reuters story.

It goes without saying that Bush's support has nothing to do with the fact that former antitrust lawyer Powell's father is secretary of state Colin Powell.

In the meanwhile, Powell tried to defend the broadcast media ownership regulations, saying, "We created enforceable rules that reflect the realities of today's media marketplace. The rules will benefit Americans by protecting localism, competition and diversity."

Enforceable by whom? And the local Americans in question are principally CBS and UPN (Viacom), ABC (Disney), Fox (News Corp) and NBC (GE).

Enuff said.

Now the battle moves to the US Senate.

The following query is posed mostly out of my own combination of curiosity and sloth. Is Powell personally benefitting from deregulation of broadcast media? I suppose I could look it up if I had to, but I figured I'd take the path of least resistance as see if anyone else has done their homework.