Posted by
PD Blogger on Saturday, May 05, 2007 10:24:31 AM
If you are a fan of talk radio, you've no doubt heard this week about a new piece of legislation that would affect radio stations if it were enacted.
The Media Ownership Reform Act (MORA) has been proposed by Rep. Maurice Hinchey (D-NY). The bill aims to, "restore integrity and diversity to America's media system by lowering
the number of media outlets that one company is permitted to own in a
single market." The bill would also reinstate the so-called Fairness Doctrine, which was a provision enforced by the FCC until 1987 that required that radio stations provide equal and balanced coverage of issues. It was repealed by the FCC in 1987.
Now, as a professional broadcast manager and a student of media law and policy, I have mixed views on this particular bill. On one hand, I greatly favor the expansion of media ownership. I think that we've reached a point where too few media companies own too many radio stations. I'm as much a free market capitalist as the next guy, but when we're talking about radio stations, we're talking about licensing the electromagnetic spectrum, which is a finite resource. That resource has become concentrated in the hands of a few very powerful companies that, in most cases, aren't doing a very good job handling that spectrum. That's not to say that I'm against big business, but I am against big businesses that squander finite resources in the name of profits. I'd much rather see big business, medium-sized business, and small business share this resource and provide consumers with a broad array of voices, viewpoints, and formats.
As far as the Fairness Doctrine is concerned, I am completely opposed to its restoration. The FD is an antiquated tool that once served a purpose, when electronic media was in its infancy. When the only options for hearing difference points of view were a handful of radio stations, then it made sense. But in the year 2007, not only do we have dozens and dozens of radio stations in a given community, but we also have hundreds of TV channels, piles of newspapers and magazines, and a virtually endless list supply of websites, blogs, podcasts, etc.. In this day and age, if you have a viewpoint, you can instantly broadcast that idea to the whole world. Why in the world would we need the FCC to regulate the content of radio stations? I mean, this is the FCC -the FCC! -- after all. How could they possibly enforce the FD with the thousands of radio stations currently licensed in the U.S.? Enforcing the rules about indecent language on the airwaves is hard enough. Can you imagine the legal nightmare it would be to police whether or not stations give equal time to a discussion of global warming?
It's highly unlikely that MORA will pass either the House or the Senate. If it were, then it would certainly be vetoed by President Bush. However, I do think that we may be entering in a larger discussion regarding diversity in media ownership that is a discussion worth having.