Word: fcc
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...January 1969 the Federal Communications Commission (PCC) denied WHDH's application to renew its license, awarding it to BBI instead. WHDH appealed the ruling, but it was upheld by the courts. On August 20, however, the FCC requested the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals to reopen the entire case, in view of the various federal civil suits against David and a ruling is still pending on this request...
More practical aids to good broadcasting were instituted under Roosevelt's administrations, however, than at any other point in history. The first FCC board boasted an old Bullmooser, George Henry Payne, and did insist on reviewing past station performance when renewing station licenses, even if the task was (and is) too difficult for a single committee. Such quacks as Dr. Brinkley, the animal glands peddler who could have been the governor of Kansas, received justified revocations...
...World War II era became the "Golden Age" of radio. Radio news units were given free range. Advertisers with nothing to sell to the public provided programs merely to keep their name in good standing. And James Laurence Fly became the FCC's first fighting chairman. He initiated reform of horizontally expanding networks; he established a precedent by which station owners at license renewal time would have to face a hearing and competitive bidding; and he compared the National Association of Broadcasters to "dead mackerel in the moonlight...it both shines and stinks." Not intimidated by politicians, Fly also resisted...
When Fly left the Commission, the period of reform ended. The FCC produced a Report on Chain Broadcasting, acknowledged by most critics to be an effective guide to broadcasting, but its final effect was nil. Its definitions of "public interest" programming were read by each station according to its own proclivities; so were its commercial vs. "sustaining" program regulations. Barnouw finds this ritual the classic cycle of attempts to alter programming. The FCC "power move" caused counteracting Congressional "power moves": "speeches of protest: demand for investigations; resolutions; proposed amendments to the Communications Act." Little came of FCC action, except when...
...FCC Chairman Fly compared the NAB To "dead mackerel in the moonlight...it both shines and stinks...