DTV Transition & Media Reform

In The Other Parent: The Inside Story of the Media's Effect on Our Children, James Steyer explains that as media companies have become dominated by merger mania and quarterly profits, kids and families have been unwittingly left as the big losers. The Federal Communications Commission requires broadcasters to offer educational children's programming as one of the "public interest obligations" that justify free use of precious public airwaves. Unfortunately, there has been little enforcement of these obligations. Steyer… more

In the emerging information economy, there is no more valuable public asset than the airwaves, or electromagnetic spectrum. Unfortunately, the prevailing regulatory model for allocating spectrum is grossly inefficient and inequitable to both the business sector and the public who own this valuable resource. Commercial broadcasters are the biggest beneficiaries of this policy failure. Broadcasters originally were granted free spectrum on the condition that they act as "public trustees" of the airwaves and deliver quality educational, civic,… more

Vision is a favorite topic of Dr. Garth W. Coonce, a minor Christian-broadcasting magnate from Marion, Illinois. In his monthly newsletter, Partnership, he often muses on the sacred visions that have inspired him to amass 16 television stations, creating a 24-hour network that beams charismatic preachers like Creflo Dollar and Benny Hinn into devout homes. Coonce also likes to share the communiques he still receives from the Almighty, who occasionally instructs him to expand his media holdings into, say,… more

Last December Sen. John McCain described the 1996 grant of a second channel to broadcasters - ostensibly for the purpose of quickening the conversion to high-definition TV - as "one of the great rip-offs in American history. They used to rob trains in the Old West, now we rob spectrum." What he could not have foreseen is that the conductor of the spectrum gravy train -- the FCC -- would decide not only to allow broadcasters operating… more

Last December Sen. John McCain described the 1996 “loan” of a second TV channel to broadcasters – for the stated purpose of facilitating the transition to digital and high-definition television – as “one of the great rip offs in American history. They used to rob trains in the Old West, now we rob spectrum.”

But even critics of the first Congressional giveaway could not have anticipated that within five years the FCC would allow broadcasters operating on channels 60 to… more

It is well established that political information shares the characteristics of a public good (Downs 1957; Popkin 1991). People won’t acquire the socially optimal amount of political information because they can’t reap the full benefit of their investment. Recognizing that a well-informed populace is essential to a healthy democracy, the government grants major media substantial public subsidies and special legal protections (Cook 1998). In return, the media take on the costs of monitoring the government that individual members of the… more