Argentina Moves to Rein In Media

Argentina’s lower house of Congress passed a contentious law aimed at reining in media conglomerates and bolstering government discretion over TV and radio licensing.

If passed by the Senate, the law is expected to curb the power of one of leftist President Cristina Kirchner’s main political enemies, Argentina’s largest media group, Grupo Clarín.

Alexandre Garcia, an analyst for Raymond James & Associates in São Paulo, says the hurriedly approved legislation contained “a lot of controversial clauses that are dangerous to Clarín,” which has interests in newspapers, open-air and cable TV and radio. He says that Clarín might have to divest itself of some operations in certain markets if the measure is approved.

Eager to pass the bill before a new, opposition-dominated Congress is seated in December, the government fast-tracked the measure, angering the opposition. About 100 opposition Congress members walked out before the vote early Thursday, saying they hadn’t had time to digest 200 late changes to the bill. A united pro-government bloc approved the bill by a 146-to-3 vote. The bill could face a rocky ride in the Senate, though many analysts are betting that it will be approved next month.

The bill would tighten limits on how many licenses a media company can own, prohibit companies from offering both open-air and cable TV in the same market, limit cable operators to a 35% national market share, and create a new media regulatory body. Some of the changes would directly affect Clarín, which controls 46% of the Argentine cable market and offers both cable and open-air television in some markets.

Mrs. Kirchner had said the bill would allow more diversity in the media, opening up the airwaves for domestically produced content and for community or nongovernmental groups lacking resources of big corporations.

Many Argentine media operators agree on the necessity of updating the existing media law, which was imposed by a military government in 1980. But press groups said the government was moving too quickly and also using the proposal as a club in a battle against Clarín.

Clarín had supported Mrs. Kirchner’s husband and predecessor, Néstor, but the media giant broke with his wife during a bitter dispute between the government and farmers last year. The government has since attacked Clarín both in speeches and policy initiatives.

For instance, the government recently reached an agreement to transmit Argentine first division soccer games on a government station, scuttling an existing contract that Clarín had signed with Argentina’s soccer association.

A Clarín spokesman said that the company was hopeful that Senate would reject the media bill, and that the company intended to challenge it in the courts, if it passed. The spokesman said the bill was “dangerous to the media,” and designed to muzzle its newscasts.

Argentine press groups have expressed concern about the wide discretionary powers that would be granted to the new seven-member communications oversight board. “The sitting government will try to control content,” said Carlos Gamond, head of the press freedom commission of the Argentine Association of Journalistic Entities, an industry group.

The media law is one of several recent victories Mrs. Kirchner has won, despite her faction of the Peronist party’s having lost midterm elections in June and seen her approval rating plummet to just 23%, the lowest level of her presidency. The government has used the lengthy interregnum before the new Congress is seated in December to push its agenda in the lame-duck Congress.