Page 457 - Battleground The Media Volume 1 and 2

| Regulat ng the A rwaves: “A Toaster w th P ctures” or a Publ c Serv ce?

A concerted effort against “balkanizing the dial,” the FRC privileged broadcast-
ers with programming strategies to meet the needs of a general listenership. In
its early licensing decisions, the FRC favored a broadcasting system predicated
on national commercial networks and cast suspicion on other uses of radio.
During the period between 1927 and 1934, a broadcast reform movement—
composed of private foundations, educators, intellectuals, churches, and others—
fought for a new regulatory paradigm that would diminish the primacy of
commercial, network stations within the burgeoning radio industry. The 1927
Radio Act had had dire consequences for educational broadcasters; in 1927, 94
educational institutions had broadcasting licenses, a number that dwindled to
49 by 1931. The FRC reassigned educational broadcasters to less desirable fre-
quencies, reserving the more powerful ones for commercial broadcasters. Allies
in Congress proposed legislation that would reserve a set percentage of stations
for educational broadcasting. At the core of this movement was the presumption
that the dominance of commercial broadcasters squandered the possibilities of
radio, and consequently diminished the potential for public service that the me-
dium offered. In response, the national networks successfully launched a public
relations campaign to extol the benefits of the status quo and to publicize the
educational and service capabilities of commercial broadcasters.
When Congress passed the Federal Communications Act of 1934, which re-
iterated almost word-for-word the Radio Act of 1927, it cemented the failure
of the broadcast reform movement to realize an alternate system of broadcast
regulation. The act replaced the FRC with the FCC, a permanent regulatory
agency that would regulate all telecommunications—not just broadcasting, but
telephony and telegraphy as well. Members of the FCC, who would be appointed
by the president but would answer to Congress, would have the power to li-
cense broadcasters, allocate channels, renew broadcasting licenses, and guard
the airwaves to protect the public interest. This act would remain the basis of
U.S. broadcasting policy until 1996, when Congress passed the Telecommunica-
tions Act.
If initially federal regulators understood that the best way to serve the public
interest was to support the growth of a stable broadcasting industry, then later
the emphasis would shift to a new definition of the public interest. This new
model asserted that the best way to ensure that the public’s interest was met was
to foster competition, diversity, and localism in the broadcasting industry. How-
ever, regulators, legislators, and the courts would disagree over the best way to
accomplish these goals.
For some, the path required imposing regulations upon broadcasters. The
FCC, beginning in the 1960s, required broadcasters to fill out lengthy renewal
forms in which they would detail how they had fulfilled their public service ob-
ligations. In the 1970s, the FCC created the Prime Time Access Rule (PTAR)
and the Financial Interest and Syndication Rule (Fin-Syn), both intended to
bolster local and independent programming. The PTAR restricted stations to
three hours of network programming during prime time, in the hopes that that
the fourth hour would be filled by local programming. Fin-Syn forbade net-
works from having a financial interest in, and domestic syndication rights for, its