Page 458 - Battleground The Media Volume 1 and 2

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

entertainment programming. The goal of Fin-Syn was to increase the power of
independent producers to gain access to airtime. The FCC also imposed owner-
ship restrictions on how many stations a single company could own and passed
rules to encourage minority ownership of broadcasting stations.
In the 1980s, the FCC implemented a new direction in broadcasting policy:
deregulation of the broadcasting industry. It adopted a “marketplace approach”
to broadcast regulation, one that led it to remove many of the regulations it had
imposed in the past. During this decade, the FCC expanded the length of a
broadcasting license to five years for television stations, seven years for radio; it
also eliminated the lengthy license renewal process. The FCC also repealed the
Anti-trafficking Rule, which had required station owners to wait three years be-
fore they could sell their stations. The FCC additionally reformed its broadcast
ownership rules, allowing single entities to expand their holdings.
This era of deregulation was codified by Congress when, in 1996, it passed
the Telecommunications Act. Among its other provisions, the act removed the
national cap on how many radio stations a single company could own and raised
the number of television stations a single company could own. It also dimin-
ished the ability of the FCC to revoke a broadcasting license and required the
FCC to examine its media ownership rules every two years to ascertain if they
still served the public interest.

rEguLaTing sPEECh
A persistent area of conflict in broadcasting regulation has been the tension
between the First Amendment rights of broadcasters and their public service
obligations. This friction is evident in the 1934 Federal Communications Act,
which defined broadcast speech as speech protected by the First Amendment,
but also prohibited “obscene, indecent, or profane language” and required broad-
casters to allow political candidates access to the airwaves.
One of the early concerns of regulators was that broadcasters could use the
airwaves as bully pulpits to promote their views. In 1941, the FCC instituted
the Mayflower Doctrine, which prohibited broadcasters from editorializing on
the air. By the end of the decade, however, regulators acknowledged the public-
square function of broadcasting and asserted that, for citizens to participate
knowledgably in democratic processes, they must have access to the arguments
that affect the exigent issues of the day. In 1949, the FCC established the Fairness
Doctrine. The Fairness Doctrine had two requirements: (1) broadcasters had an
affirmative obligation to air issues of public concern to their communities and
(2) they must provide airtime to both sides of the issue.
Broadcasters chafed at the Fairness Doctrine and argued that it violated their
First Amendment rights. The Supreme Court, in its Red Lion Broadcasting Co. v.
FCC (1969) decision, upheld the constitutionality of the Fairness Doctrine. The
Court ruled that the right of the public to hear multiple viewpoints trumped
broadcasters’ claims to free-speech rights. In addition, the Court held that be-
cause broadcasters had access to a resource, the airwaves, denied to most people,
they had different responsibilities than newspapers or other organs of the press.