JMM 102 Lecture Notes - Lecture 6: Federal Communications Commission, Fireside Chats, Federal Radio Commission
31 Mar 2017
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Government regulation: turn of the century: experimental wireless stage. Marconi, fessenden, deforest, etc: radio act of 1912: Requires federal licensing of broadcast stations; but does not include any reason to reject a license application: early 1920s: total chaos stage due to too many stations and signal interference. Radio conferences, 1922-1925, solve nothing: court decisions also showed inadequacy of radio act of 1912. Radio act of 1927: government will issue licenses, assign operating frequencies and designate power levels, picon standard. Public interest, convenience, or necessity: no property right to license, established 5-member federal radio commission, (frc- precursor to fcc, key concept: airwaves belong to the people . Communications act of 1934: retains some 1927 radio act provisions . No property right to license: established a new body the 7-member federal communications. Commission(fcc)(today it"s 5: added telephone & telegraph (wired) communication regulation, it remains the current statute (law) governing broadcasting. Station assignments: am stations licensed starting in the 1920s.
