Government Regulation on Broadcast Television

The  mass media in the United States are privately owned. Public radio and public television, which receive part of their revenues from the federal government through the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB), represent a comparatively small share of the market. Private ownership ensures considerable, but not absolute, freedom from government oversight. It does raise questions, however, about how the mass media operate. The regulations remain in force because the government considers cable TV to be a "natural monopoly," and because of the importance of communications technology to national security.

The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) guidelines state that local governments can set the rate for the most basic cable service, but rates for other types of service are not regulated. To provide service, a company must acquire franchise permission from each local government in each region it wants to begin business, and the local government has the right to deny permission. Municipalities usually grant exclusive franchise rights in return for a 3 to 5 percent commission of revenue.

The FCC bans indecent content from broadcast stations, but these regulations do not apply to cable and satellite television because people pay for the service, and cable is not part of the government-licensed broadcast spectrum. Cable and satellite companies state that regulating content would be an infringement of First Amendment rights. They say that technology such as the V-chip allows parents to shield children from inappropriate cable content. In 2005, the FCC considered extending the indecency regulations to basic cable service, as well as requiring cable companies to provide an "a la carte" service for consumers to purchase each cable station separately rather than as a package. These ideas were later shelved, but some of the largest companies did agree to offer a family-friendly basic cable option.

I believe that competition, increasing costs, and mergers, the number of newspapers in the United States has dropped sharply. Many major cities are served by only one daily paper. In addition, the number of independent newspapers has declined as chains such as Gannett purchase additional properties. At issue is whether concentration discourages diversity of opinion and ultimately leads to the management of the news by media corporations. The three major TV networks (ABC, CBS, and NBC) do not own their own affiliate stations, and they face real competition from new networks, such as Fox, as well as from a growing number of all-news and entertainment cable stations. The Telecommunications Act of 1996 was supposed to promote competition in the broadcast media. It eased the restrictions on the number of television stations a single company could own and lifted all limits on radio station ownership except to prevent control of a market or geographic area. The legislation led to more concentration in the industry.

I think from its inception, the broadcast media has been subject to regulation. During the early days of radio, stations operated on the same frequencies and often jammed each other's signals. The Federal Radio Act (1927) set up licensing procedures to allocate frequencies under the premise that the airwaves belong to the public. The current regulatory framework was established by the 1934 Federal Communications Act, which established the Federal Communications Commission (FCC).

The FCC regulates the industry in several ways. It limits the number of radio and television stations a company can own, has rules governing public service and local programming, and reviews station operations as part of licensing process. Under the equal time rule, stations are required to give all candidates for political office access to airtime on the same terms. The fairness doctrine obligated broadcasters to present conflicting points of view on important public issues, but the FCC abolished the doctrine in 1987 with the support of President Ronald Reagan for two reasons:

1) it was considered a violation of freedom of the press, and  2) competition in the broadcast media ensured diversity of opinion.

In recent years, the FCC levied significant fines on broadcasters for profanity and indecency. Attempts by the Congress to regulate the content of the Internet have not passed Supreme Court review.

I also believe that broadcast and print media differ in how much the audience can retain and recall. Average newspaper readers retain and recall more information than do average broadcast viewers and listeners. The reason for this difference is, in my opinion, that broadcast media can be turned on but then forgotten. Print media however cannot be ignored in this way. For it to be of any use, people must interact with print media. Consider people who come home from work with a newspaper. They walk into the house, throw the paper on the table, turn on the television and move to the kitchen to fix a snack. While in the kitchen they can still hear the television but they do not interact directly with it. Newspapers cannot interact with their audience the same way television can. Print media requires a much higher degree of interaction with its audience. This higher degree of interaction is why people retain and recall more information from print media.

Another area in which broadcast and print media differ is in permanence. It is a simple matter to read last week’s news. Libraries keep newspapers dating back decades, perhaps centuries. If the actual paper itself is not available then a facsimile of some type, most likely microfiche, will be. Compare this to broadcast media where it is difficult to watch last week’s television news and next to impossible to listen to radio newscasts from decades past. New technology is slowly changing this, but it will be some time before data compression and storage technologies reach a level where libraries will be able to archive broadcast media. When technologies do reach this level, will libraries have the desire to compress and store all this information? If so, will anyone want or require it? Print has posterity, while broadcast is fleeting.

In broadcast media also the  tone of voice, physical build, gender, and dress all influence the audience’s perceptions of authenticity and accuracy.