From WNYKRC in New York, this is NPR's On the Media. I'm Bob Garfield.

And I'm Brooke Gladstone. Several members of Congress have been looking to restore media ownership rules ever since the June 2nd FCC decision to relax regulation.

The biggest impediment, though, has been the threat of Representative Billy Tozen, a proponent of the FCC ruling,

who vowed to block any efforts against it in the House. A few bills have been introduced in the

Senate in the past month, but under the watchful eye of Tozen, no one, even the senators themselves,

expected them to go far. But some representatives got smart.

Last week, instead of introducing a sure-to-fail bill in the Tozen-Chared Commerce Committee,

they instead attached an amendment to a sure-to-pass appropriations bill.

On Wednesday, that bill did indeed pass in the full House by a vote of 400 to 21.

Now, amid rumors that FCC Chairman Michael Powell could step down in the fall,

the prospect of restoring big media restrictions seems very likely.

Joining me is Alicia Mundy, a senior editor of Cable World magazine.

Alicia, welcome back to the show.

Hi, thanks for having me.

Okay, now, when we talked three weeks ago, you gave us your prediction of whether this

legislation could ever pass.

In fact, we have a clip from that conversation.

All right, in one word or less, does meaningful legislation

canceling out the FCC's action have the slightest chance of being passed by both houses

of Congress? No. That would be no. Well, the House Appropriations Committee has certainly

put a dent in your snow's chance in hell theory.

I said that snowball would melt, and I have news for you, that snowball is intact. It's bigger

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