...Mr. Powell said he was a "relative skeptic" of the notion that government limitations on the size of broadcast companies actually promote diversity of the airwaves. The nation's largest broadcasters, notably Viacom, have lobbied to sharply loosen the rule that prevents them from owning stations that reach more than 35 percent of households in the country, a regulation that has kept them from buying more stations.

"I am quite skeptical that anyone has any demonstrable case that such caps actually inure to the benefit of consumers in the form of greater and more diverse product," he said. "That's almost a romantic notion at times and an emotional one, and I think an important one, but that is more difficult to demonstrate objectively than to believe subjectively. As an institution of government, we have to be able to justify on more than just a sentiment the continuation of a regulatory intervention, and that's the way I feel about that cap."

...He then added that he thought "digital divide" was a dangerous phrase because it could be used to justify government entitlement programs that guaranteed poor people cheaper access to new technology, like digital television sets or computers.

"I think there is a Mercedes divide," he said. "I'd like to have one; I can't afford one. I'm not meaning to be completely flip about this. I think it's an important social issue. But it shouldn't be used to justify the notion of essentially the socialization of the deployment of the infrastructure."

Mr. Kimmelman said that Mr. Powell's remarks "were insensitive and elitist."

Others said they reflected an ivory tower view of the world. "Chairman Powell thinks that opportunity grows on trees," said Andrew J. Schwartzman, president of the Media Access Project, a nonpartisan group that advocates diversity of the airwaves. "It doesn't. It's fostered by private-sector and public- sector policy makers. Ironically in his time in government, Michael Powell seems to have become isolated from the realities of life for most Americans."