robmx
06-04-2003, 01:44 AM
Sooner or later someone with teeth was going to notice that the broadcasters were no longer using the TV spectrum. Few still receive OTA analog TV and the number is declining. Very few receive OTA DTV and the number is rising so slow that at the current rate it would be thousands of years before we transitioned to digital.
Maybe the ownership of TV station debate will finally awaken the sleeping dogs in DC. Maybe the coming priesidential election will make it an issue since it is a partisan fight at the FCC now.
Anyway this article below suggest that it may finally become an issue. I have been predicting that at some point this would happen.
The broadcasters may lose all the spectrum because of their recent shenanigans like choosing a non functioning modulation like 8-VSB.
Bob Miller
From John Shutt on OPENDTV:
From today's National Public Radio's All Things Considered:
"Robert Siegel speaks with Thomas Hazlett, a former chief economist for the
FCC who is now a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute for Policy
Research. Hazlett was quoted in Tuesday's Los Angeles Times as saying that
free television -- VHF and UHF -- is insane in an environment where 90
percent of the public accesses programming through cable and satellite."
The audio will be available after 9 PM EDT at:
<http://www.npr.org/programs/atc/index.html>
In the meantime, here's the referenced L.A. Times article. My favorite
quote: "(If the spectrum was sold off, the have-nots could be subsidized so
they would receive pay television - what some have dubbed "food stamps for
TV.")"
From the Los Angeles Times:
<http://www.latimes.com/la-fi-freetv3jun03,1,1288412.story>
Is Free TV Worth Saving in a 500-Channel World?
By Sallie Hofmeister
Times Staff Writer
June 3, 2003
The first man on the moon. The assassinations of JFK and John Lennon.
Political campaigns and Super Bowl games. Tornado warnings, manhunts, "MASH"
and "Joe Millionaire."
Since the 1950s, the free broadcast system has served as the great
galvanizer and equalizer, accessible to anyone in the nation owning a
rooftop antenna and a TV. Even today, most Americans get their news from TV
broadcasters.
Yet some critics say the system is irreparably broken and growing more
irrelevant in the face of competition from cable and satellite services,
even as the federal government has moved to prop up the broadcast industry.
Monday's vote by the Federal Communications Commission to loosen the rules
governing media ownership were, at root, about one thing: "trying to
strengthen the foundations of free, over-the-air television," in the words
of FCC Chairman Michael K. Powell.
But increasingly, critics are asking some pointed questions: Is broadcast
television worth saving, especially when the industry arguably has abandoned
the pact struck decades ago - that is, in exchange for serving the "public
interest," TV stations get to use the airwaves for free? Why give
broadcasters the ability to become more profitable when many of them no
longer air the kind of community-oriented programming that once was their
mandate?
Might it make more sense for Uncle Sam to fatten its coffers by taking back
the airwaves and selling them to the highest bidder?
Although the notion is radical - and largely confined right now to a handful
of politicians and the think tank crowd - the numbers are hard to ignore:
Selling off the broadcast spectrum to wireless phone companies and other
high-tech interests could fetch as much as $400 billion. The proceeds could
help fund schools or health care or a public TV system free from commercial
influences.
What's more, proponents of the sell-off idea point out that nearly 85% of
the nation's households already pay for cable or satellite TV, and their
packages typically include the local TV stations and broadcast networks.
Given that only 15% of the country relies solely on free, over-the-air TV,
many say the spectrum could be put to better uses. (If the spectrum was sold
off, the have-nots could be subsidized so they would receive pay
television - what some have dubbed "food stamps for TV.")
"Take away the government protections, and the free TV system would die a
natural death," said Thomas Hazlett, a former chief economist for the FCC
and now a senior fellow at theManhattan Institute for Policy Research. "We
should do something productive with the spectrum."
Two of the FCC's five members have called for a complete examination of
industry practices, including whether broadcasters are living up to their
public interest obligation.
"No one has a God-given right to use these airwaves for strictly commercial
purposes," said Democratic FCC Commissioner Michael J. Copps, who was one of
two dissenters in Monday's 3-2 vote.
In Copps' view, many Americans have been disenfranchised as broadcasters
increasingly target the 18- to 49-year-old viewers for whom advertisers pay
the most to reach.
Television, Copps said, "seems to have narrowed its mission to one of
delivering eyeballs to advertisers.... That kind of television is tunnel
vision, and the target audience of tunnel vision is no longer the majority
but a small, albeit free-spending minority."
Safeguarding the public interest has been the cornerstone of the agreement
between broadcasters and federal regulators since the dawn of the industry.
After all, "broadcasting was a privilege," not a right, declared Democratic
Sen. Clarence Dill of Washington, one of the lawmakers behind the Radio Act
of 1927, which set the public interest standard.
Congress' aim in the 1927 act, as well as in follow-up legislation such as
the Communications Act of 1934, was to keep advertising at a minimum while
requiring licensees to inform and entertain according to local tastes and
sensibilities.
As TVs became more commonplace in American homes during the 1950s, broadcast
licensees were closely scrutinized every three years under a rigorous
renewal process.
To prove they were worthy of keeping their licenses, stations were required
to write proposals outlining their plans for meeting the public interest.
Typically a station would poll 100 top community leaders on the 10 most
important issues of the day and then promise in its proposal to devote so
many hours a year to each of these topics.
Stations also were subject to "comparative hearings," in which other parties
could petition for their licenses - in part by claiming that they could
better serve the public. Los Angeles' KHJ was tied up in litigation for 15
years as a result of one of these challenges, which claimed that its
programming was second-rate. Walt Disney Co. ultimately ended up with the
station and changed its call letters to KCAL. (KCAL is now owned by Viacom
Inc.)
Of their total schedules, stations were required to devote 5% to news and 5%
to public affairs programming. Only a handful of stations ever lost their
licenses - but the threat was real.
"In the old days, broadcasters spent" heavily to "make sure their licenses
were renewed," said Gene Kimmelman, a senior director at Consumers Union,a
Washington-based advocacy group.
But by the 1980s, a new attitude was taking hold. As part of its assault on
government regulation, the Reagan administration relaxed the demands on
broadcasters.
"The FCC then stood for Federal Cannot Commission," said Mark Fowler, who
served as the agency's chairman during the Reagan years. "Telecommunications
was being choked to death by regulation, so we went about eliminating
hundreds of different rules."
The idea, he added, was that "the consumer would be king. They would choose.
We eliminated content rules because we were acting as censors, looking at
scripts. That's a 1st Amendment violation.
"Public interest is defined by the public's interest rather than by
regulators in green eyeshades sitting in the central office in Washington."
Eventually, the renewal period was lengthened to eight years from three.
Comparative hearings were done away with. Rules restricting the amount of
advertising were eliminated, and bans on commercials during children's
programming were lifted. The requirement to have at least 10% news and
public affairs programming disappeared.
Copps said the licensing process now is so streamlined - replaced by a pro
forma procedure - that it has become little more than a "postcard renewal."
Rather than provide commitments on how they would meet the public interest,
stations today are required to keep logs, updated every quarter, listing
ways that they have served the public. For instance, the "public file" for
the first quarter at KNBC Channel 4 in Los Angeles runs 48 pages. The
document notes that Channel 4 News reported on everything from Amber alerts
to rising gasoline prices to the effectiveness of electric toothbrushes.
Critics say these logs are a poor substitute for a more painstaking license
renewal process that would focus on whether programming is truly reflecting
the community interest.
"Nobody looks at these files, because they are pointless and not specific
enough to be able to make a public interest assessment," said Andrew
Schwartzman of the Media Access Project, a public advocacy group in
Washington.
Another blow to the public interest requirements came after Fowler left
office, when the Fairness Doctrine was abolished. Established in 1949, it
guaranteed air time to both sides of a controversy.
The doctrine was routinely used by advocacy groups to get their points
across. For example, after Pacific Gas & Electric Co. spent $8 million on TV
advertising to promote a pro-nuclear power ballot initiative in California,
a court ruling in the early 1980s forced the FCC to compel broadcasters that
aired the PG&E commercials to provide the equivalent of $2 million in
advertising time for anti-nuclear commercials.
But in 1987, in the case of Meredith Corp. vs. FCC, the courts ruled that
the doctrine was unenforceable because Congress had not mandated it and
because the FCC is charged with administering rather than making laws.
For some, the demise of the Fairness Doctrine marked a final breakdown in
the social contract between government and broadcasters.
"Where there is no fighting or opposition in viewpoints," said Herbert Chao
Gunther, chief executive of the nonprofit Public Media Center in San
Francisco, "there is no democracy."
Whether concerns over broadcasters' living up to their public interest
obligations will prompt more critics to argue for simply selling off the
spectrum remains to be seen. Many of those who express disgust at the
broadcasters' public interest record have focused on tightening content
rules, not scrapping the free-TV system.
But at least a few observers say it is time to start questioning the whole
free-TV model.
"The public interest has been replaced by the commercial interests of
powerful media," said Lawrence K. Grossman, a former president of NBC News
and PBS.
"Things that don't make money - coverage of the arts, culture, civic
issues - don't get any attention."
Given that, Grossman wonders whether the spectrum should remain in the
broadcasters' hands. The way it is now, he said, "it's probably one of the
greatest wastes to society."
==^================================================================
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Maybe the ownership of TV station debate will finally awaken the sleeping dogs in DC. Maybe the coming priesidential election will make it an issue since it is a partisan fight at the FCC now.
Anyway this article below suggest that it may finally become an issue. I have been predicting that at some point this would happen.
The broadcasters may lose all the spectrum because of their recent shenanigans like choosing a non functioning modulation like 8-VSB.
Bob Miller
From John Shutt on OPENDTV:
From today's National Public Radio's All Things Considered:
"Robert Siegel speaks with Thomas Hazlett, a former chief economist for the
FCC who is now a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute for Policy
Research. Hazlett was quoted in Tuesday's Los Angeles Times as saying that
free television -- VHF and UHF -- is insane in an environment where 90
percent of the public accesses programming through cable and satellite."
The audio will be available after 9 PM EDT at:
<http://www.npr.org/programs/atc/index.html>
In the meantime, here's the referenced L.A. Times article. My favorite
quote: "(If the spectrum was sold off, the have-nots could be subsidized so
they would receive pay television - what some have dubbed "food stamps for
TV.")"
From the Los Angeles Times:
<http://www.latimes.com/la-fi-freetv3jun03,1,1288412.story>
Is Free TV Worth Saving in a 500-Channel World?
By Sallie Hofmeister
Times Staff Writer
June 3, 2003
The first man on the moon. The assassinations of JFK and John Lennon.
Political campaigns and Super Bowl games. Tornado warnings, manhunts, "MASH"
and "Joe Millionaire."
Since the 1950s, the free broadcast system has served as the great
galvanizer and equalizer, accessible to anyone in the nation owning a
rooftop antenna and a TV. Even today, most Americans get their news from TV
broadcasters.
Yet some critics say the system is irreparably broken and growing more
irrelevant in the face of competition from cable and satellite services,
even as the federal government has moved to prop up the broadcast industry.
Monday's vote by the Federal Communications Commission to loosen the rules
governing media ownership were, at root, about one thing: "trying to
strengthen the foundations of free, over-the-air television," in the words
of FCC Chairman Michael K. Powell.
But increasingly, critics are asking some pointed questions: Is broadcast
television worth saving, especially when the industry arguably has abandoned
the pact struck decades ago - that is, in exchange for serving the "public
interest," TV stations get to use the airwaves for free? Why give
broadcasters the ability to become more profitable when many of them no
longer air the kind of community-oriented programming that once was their
mandate?
Might it make more sense for Uncle Sam to fatten its coffers by taking back
the airwaves and selling them to the highest bidder?
Although the notion is radical - and largely confined right now to a handful
of politicians and the think tank crowd - the numbers are hard to ignore:
Selling off the broadcast spectrum to wireless phone companies and other
high-tech interests could fetch as much as $400 billion. The proceeds could
help fund schools or health care or a public TV system free from commercial
influences.
What's more, proponents of the sell-off idea point out that nearly 85% of
the nation's households already pay for cable or satellite TV, and their
packages typically include the local TV stations and broadcast networks.
Given that only 15% of the country relies solely on free, over-the-air TV,
many say the spectrum could be put to better uses. (If the spectrum was sold
off, the have-nots could be subsidized so they would receive pay
television - what some have dubbed "food stamps for TV.")
"Take away the government protections, and the free TV system would die a
natural death," said Thomas Hazlett, a former chief economist for the FCC
and now a senior fellow at theManhattan Institute for Policy Research. "We
should do something productive with the spectrum."
Two of the FCC's five members have called for a complete examination of
industry practices, including whether broadcasters are living up to their
public interest obligation.
"No one has a God-given right to use these airwaves for strictly commercial
purposes," said Democratic FCC Commissioner Michael J. Copps, who was one of
two dissenters in Monday's 3-2 vote.
In Copps' view, many Americans have been disenfranchised as broadcasters
increasingly target the 18- to 49-year-old viewers for whom advertisers pay
the most to reach.
Television, Copps said, "seems to have narrowed its mission to one of
delivering eyeballs to advertisers.... That kind of television is tunnel
vision, and the target audience of tunnel vision is no longer the majority
but a small, albeit free-spending minority."
Safeguarding the public interest has been the cornerstone of the agreement
between broadcasters and federal regulators since the dawn of the industry.
After all, "broadcasting was a privilege," not a right, declared Democratic
Sen. Clarence Dill of Washington, one of the lawmakers behind the Radio Act
of 1927, which set the public interest standard.
Congress' aim in the 1927 act, as well as in follow-up legislation such as
the Communications Act of 1934, was to keep advertising at a minimum while
requiring licensees to inform and entertain according to local tastes and
sensibilities.
As TVs became more commonplace in American homes during the 1950s, broadcast
licensees were closely scrutinized every three years under a rigorous
renewal process.
To prove they were worthy of keeping their licenses, stations were required
to write proposals outlining their plans for meeting the public interest.
Typically a station would poll 100 top community leaders on the 10 most
important issues of the day and then promise in its proposal to devote so
many hours a year to each of these topics.
Stations also were subject to "comparative hearings," in which other parties
could petition for their licenses - in part by claiming that they could
better serve the public. Los Angeles' KHJ was tied up in litigation for 15
years as a result of one of these challenges, which claimed that its
programming was second-rate. Walt Disney Co. ultimately ended up with the
station and changed its call letters to KCAL. (KCAL is now owned by Viacom
Inc.)
Of their total schedules, stations were required to devote 5% to news and 5%
to public affairs programming. Only a handful of stations ever lost their
licenses - but the threat was real.
"In the old days, broadcasters spent" heavily to "make sure their licenses
were renewed," said Gene Kimmelman, a senior director at Consumers Union,a
Washington-based advocacy group.
But by the 1980s, a new attitude was taking hold. As part of its assault on
government regulation, the Reagan administration relaxed the demands on
broadcasters.
"The FCC then stood for Federal Cannot Commission," said Mark Fowler, who
served as the agency's chairman during the Reagan years. "Telecommunications
was being choked to death by regulation, so we went about eliminating
hundreds of different rules."
The idea, he added, was that "the consumer would be king. They would choose.
We eliminated content rules because we were acting as censors, looking at
scripts. That's a 1st Amendment violation.
"Public interest is defined by the public's interest rather than by
regulators in green eyeshades sitting in the central office in Washington."
Eventually, the renewal period was lengthened to eight years from three.
Comparative hearings were done away with. Rules restricting the amount of
advertising were eliminated, and bans on commercials during children's
programming were lifted. The requirement to have at least 10% news and
public affairs programming disappeared.
Copps said the licensing process now is so streamlined - replaced by a pro
forma procedure - that it has become little more than a "postcard renewal."
Rather than provide commitments on how they would meet the public interest,
stations today are required to keep logs, updated every quarter, listing
ways that they have served the public. For instance, the "public file" for
the first quarter at KNBC Channel 4 in Los Angeles runs 48 pages. The
document notes that Channel 4 News reported on everything from Amber alerts
to rising gasoline prices to the effectiveness of electric toothbrushes.
Critics say these logs are a poor substitute for a more painstaking license
renewal process that would focus on whether programming is truly reflecting
the community interest.
"Nobody looks at these files, because they are pointless and not specific
enough to be able to make a public interest assessment," said Andrew
Schwartzman of the Media Access Project, a public advocacy group in
Washington.
Another blow to the public interest requirements came after Fowler left
office, when the Fairness Doctrine was abolished. Established in 1949, it
guaranteed air time to both sides of a controversy.
The doctrine was routinely used by advocacy groups to get their points
across. For example, after Pacific Gas & Electric Co. spent $8 million on TV
advertising to promote a pro-nuclear power ballot initiative in California,
a court ruling in the early 1980s forced the FCC to compel broadcasters that
aired the PG&E commercials to provide the equivalent of $2 million in
advertising time for anti-nuclear commercials.
But in 1987, in the case of Meredith Corp. vs. FCC, the courts ruled that
the doctrine was unenforceable because Congress had not mandated it and
because the FCC is charged with administering rather than making laws.
For some, the demise of the Fairness Doctrine marked a final breakdown in
the social contract between government and broadcasters.
"Where there is no fighting or opposition in viewpoints," said Herbert Chao
Gunther, chief executive of the nonprofit Public Media Center in San
Francisco, "there is no democracy."
Whether concerns over broadcasters' living up to their public interest
obligations will prompt more critics to argue for simply selling off the
spectrum remains to be seen. Many of those who express disgust at the
broadcasters' public interest record have focused on tightening content
rules, not scrapping the free-TV system.
But at least a few observers say it is time to start questioning the whole
free-TV model.
"The public interest has been replaced by the commercial interests of
powerful media," said Lawrence K. Grossman, a former president of NBC News
and PBS.
"Things that don't make money - coverage of the arts, culture, civic
issues - don't get any attention."
Given that, Grossman wonders whether the spectrum should remain in the
broadcasters' hands. The way it is now, he said, "it's probably one of the
greatest wastes to society."
==^================================================================
This email was sent to: bob@viacel.com
EASY UNSUBSCRIBE click here: http://topica.com/u/?bz8QYL.bAunwW.Ym9iQHZp
Or send an email to: openDTV-unsubscribe@topica.com
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