roundtable: Commercialization Precedent: The Radio Industry

roundtable: Commercialization Precedent: The Radio Industry

Commercialization Precedent: The Radio Industry

Richard K. Moore (rkmoore@iol.ie)
Sun, 9 Apr 1995 10:00:07 +0000 

Message-Id: <v0211010dabac735149a0@[193.120.234.107]>
Date: Sun, 9 Apr 1995 10:00:07 +0000
To: roundtable@cni.org
From: rkmoore@iol.ie (Richard K. Moore)
Subject: Commercialization Precedent: The Radio Industry


Dear Roundtable folks,

I've received several individual requests for this article, and I 
consider it of interest to this list anyway, so here it is...

-rkm

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 Posted by --  Richard K. Moore --  rkmoore@iol.ie --  Wexford, Ireland.
 Moderator for  --  CYBER-RIGHTS & CYBERJOURNAL --  Ask to see the FAQs.
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(Commercialization Precedent: The Radio Industry -- OpEd)
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Forwarded message:
From: CML@unca.edu
Sender: owner-media-forum@actwin.com
To: media-forum@actwin.com
Date: 95-02-22 10:43:19 EST

Following is the final draft of an op-ed on public broadcasting originally
posted in draft form on this list.  This final draft was published this
past Sunday (Feb. 19) in the Raleigh (N.C.) News & Observer.  Many thanks
to those on the list who gave me feedback on the first draft.  Please feel
free to post this to other relevant lists.  I retain subsequent publication
rights. Copyright Wally Bowen, 1995.  For re-print information, please
contact the author at <cml@unca.edu>.  Thanks, Wally Bowen, Citizens for
Media Literacy, Asheville,  N.C.

        As the right continues its assault on public broadcasting, history
shows who wins and who loses if the Public Broadcasting Service is
privatized.
        During World War One, the government poured money and talent into
perfecting a new technology called radio.  Returning veterans with radio
training helped spawn hundreds of small radio stations across America
during the post-war years.  By 1925, there were 128 college and university
radio stations and a similar number of stations run by a variety of
non-profits, from farmer and labor organizations to religious and civic
groups.
        But a problem arose when the frequencies of the fast-growing
commercial networks, led by NBC, began bumping into non-profit frequencies.
With commercial broadcasters clamoring for government regulation of the
airwaves, the Federal Radio Commission was formed, which NBC and its allies
packed with sympathetic attorneys and engineers.
        In 1928, the FRC designated the non-profits as "propaganda"
stations,  while commercial broadcasters were given the more benign label
of "general service" stations.
        Not surprisingly, the FRC favored "general service" stations
whenever frequency disputes arose.  Drawn into lengthy and expensive
litigation, many non-profit stations were forced to shut down.  Most of
those that survived ran head-on into the Depression and died.
        The final nail in the coffin of non-profit radio occurred in 1934,
when the networks and their lobbying arm, the National Association of
Broadcasters, defeated a move in Congress to reserve 20 percent of the
public  airwaves for non-commercial stations.
        A crucial argument against the 20 percent set-aside came from
business elites who feared that non-profit radio would be used to organize
farmers and  workers.
        Indeed, Chicago's WCFL -- the "Voice of Farmer-Labor" -- provided
news from the perspective of working people, leading one Midwest business
newsletter to issue this dire warning:
        "Think of the speeches that may go forth.  Wild and radical
speeches listened to by hundreds of thousands.  These wild men in their
wild talks regardless of consequences, may reach the ear, possibly
inadvertently, of your influential and trusted employee, who may be
detracted from paths favorable to his employer's success."
        Clearly, this first battle over "public" broadcasting battle was
about economic and political power, and free speech.  Both commercial and
non-profit broadcasters understood that radio could be used for social
control and private profit as well as for free speech and wider democratic
participation.
        The business elites had a simple and clear-cut strategy:  They
argued  that the marketplace is virtually synonymous with democracy, and
thus the market would fairly and impartially determine whose voices get
heard.
        But the history of free speech in America contradicts this
simplistic  belief.  In a key Supreme Court decision in 1945, Justice Hugo
Black wrote for the majority that "The First Amendment rests on the
assumption that the widest possible dissemination of information from
diverse and antagonistic sources is essential to the welfare of the public.
. . . Freedom of the press from government interference under the First
Amendment," added Justice Black, "does not sanction repression of that
freedom from private interests."
        Nevertheless, non-commercial broadcasting was silent until the
1960s,  when TV's "vast wasteland" brought Congressional action.
        Following a 1966 Carnegie Commission study, Congress passed the
Public Broadcasting Act of 1967.  But one key element of the Carnegie study
was missing:  the insulation of public broadcasting from political
manipulation, by providing an independent revenue stream from taxes on the
sale of radios, TVs, and broadcast licenses.
        President Lyndon Johnson supported the independent revenue stream
idea, but the issue was tabled in order to get legislation passed quickly.
Johnson believed Congress could amend the legislation the following year,
but this was never done.
        By the early 1970s, President Richard Nixon and fellow
conservatives were disgruntled over PBS documentaries such as "The Banks
and the Poor," a critical look at how banks' lending policies helped keep
urban poor impoverished.  To avoid charges of censorship, Nixon accused
public broadcasting of becoming too "centralized."
        On June 30, 1972, Nixon vetoed Congress' funding of public
broadcasting, which was then forced to turn to major corporations -- mainly
the oil companies -- for support.
        The current attack on PBS is just the latest twist in the noose in
a 75-year effort to strangle the free speech potential of public
broadcasting.  Those who would kill public broadcasting today are direct
descendants of the business elites who saw public media as a threat to
their dominance of America's information order.
        Now with a new information order being mapped out by media barons
like Rupert Murdoch and John Malone, the Republican Congress presents
another historic opportunity to snuff out public-sector media and its free
speech potential.
       Protectors of free speech understand it's the nature of the
commercial marketplace to silence unpopular voices and dissenting points of
view.  The cheerleading media coverage of the Persian Gulf war is one of
the more obvious and recent examples of this reality.
        Advocates for public broadcasting must find a credible voice to
tell the story of public broadcasting's 75-year struggle for survival.  Big
Bird and Barney can't do it alone.

(Wally Bowen is founder and executive director of Citizens for Media Literacy

in Asheville, N.C.)

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(end of> Commercialization Precedent: The Radio Industry -- OpEd)

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