Deregulation
Deregulation
When applied in the United States, the concept of “deregulation” describes most American electronic media policy of the past three decades. Largely a bipartisan effort, this fundamental shift in the approach of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to radio and television regulation began in the mid-1970s as a search for relatively minor “regulatory underbrush” that could be cleared away for more efficient and cost-effective administration of the important rules that would remain. Congress largely went along with this trend and initiated a few deregulatory moves of its own. The arrival of the Reagan administration and FCC Chairman Mark Fowler in 1981 marked a further shift to a fundamental and ideologically driven reappraisal of regulations long held central to national broadcasting policy. Ensuing years saw removal of many long-standing rules, resulting in an overall reduction in FCC oversight of station and network operations. Congress grew increasingly wary of the pace of deregulation, however, and began to slow the FCC’s deregulatory pace by the late 1980s.
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Specific deregulatory moves, some undertaken by the FCC and some by Congress, include (a) extending television station licenses from three to five years in 1981 and to eight in 1996; (b) expanding the number of television stations any single entity could own from the long-traditional 7 to 12 in 1985, 18 in the early 1990s, and a larger but not clearly determined number after 1996; (c) loosening restrictions on the number of stations one owner can control in a single market; (d) abolishing guidelines for minimal amounts of non-entertainment programming in 1985; (e) elimination of the Fairness Doctrine in 1987; (f) dropping in 1985 FCC guidelines on how much advertising could be carried; (g) leaving technical matters largely in the hands of station licensees rather than the FCC; and (h) considerable post-1980 deregulation of cable television, affecting its ownership, rates charged, programs carried, and public interest requirements.
Proponents of deregulation do not perceive station licensees as “public trustees” of the public airwaves, required to provide a wide variety of services to many different listening groups. Instead, broadcasting has been increasingly seen as just another business operating in a commercial marketplace, an industry that did not need its management decisions questioned by government oversees. Opponents argue that deregulation violates key parts of the Communications Act of 1934— especially the requirement that broadcasters operate in the public interest— and allows broadcasters to seek profits with little public service programming required in return. these opponents further contend that certain postderegulation changes in the television industry (the growing number of stations on the air, the increasing number of television networks, and the considerable expansion of cable and other competing services) all provide evidence to support their contentions about deregulation’s harmful effects—presumable, the television industry would not have expanded so dramatically if profit-seeking businesses thought they would incur significant costs by serving the public. Backers of deregulation argue, however, that this growing plethora of competing service options will do more for the public interest than any government policy ever could.
The Telecommunications Act of 1996, although concerned only in small part with electronic media issues, greatly accelerated the pace of deregulation. Furthermore, the George W. Bush administration (beginning in 2001) appeared ready to do away with many of the few remaining television restrictions.
American deregulation has been widely emulated in other countries in spirit if not in detail. Developed and developing countries have introduced local stations to supplement national services; have begun to allow (if not encouraged) competing media, such as cable, satellite services, and videocassettes; and have sometimes loosened regulations on traditional radio and television. Advertising support along the lines of the American model has become more widely accepted in other nations, especially as television’s operating costs rise. However, the American example of relying on competition more than regulation also threatens many countries’ traditional public service broadcasting, which must meet increasing competition for viewers by offering more commercially appealing programs, usually entertainment, rather than culture-based programming.
Since the late 1990s, the dramatic expansion of the Internet has increased the pressure on traditional broadcasters as more consumers turn on web-based information and entertainment resources, often instead of television. The availability of the Internet’s many suppliers and services also gives new force to arguments for the deregulation of older services; such a move, deregulation proponents contend, will allow television to better compete with new media forms.