The FCC's War on Broadcasting
  • The Federal Communications Commission has made little effort to hide its goal of ending free television. The recent -- and perhaps most brazen -- act was the appointment by FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski of a Duke University Law Professor to serve as the commission's architect to dismantle the nation's 1,600 television stations. Sound like hyperbole? Consider the following.

    Last month, Genachowski appointed Stuart Benjamin, who referred to broadcast television as "a powerful source of homogenization and pablum," as a key advisor on spectrum policy and First Amendment matters. Last May, Duke University published a paper by Benjamin titled "Roasting the Pig to Burn Down the House: A Modest Proposal." Benjamin recommends the FCC impose onerous "broadcast regulations that seem undesirable on their own terms but that may result in such harms to broadcasting that broadcasting leaves the [radio-TV] spectrum."

    Benjamin argues in favor of "new regulations on broadcasters that will make broadcasting unprofitable." He suggests "some regulations will impose costs on broadcasters and not only have no benefits but also impose additional costs in their effects (e.g., make programming worse)." Benjamin favors regulatory measures that "will reduce the viewership of broadcasting and thus hasten the demise of broadcasting -- what I [Benjamin] would regard as a win-win."

    Further, Benjamin notes that "every dollar of additional costs for broadcasters is one less dollar of profit, and thus reduces the attractiveness of over-the-air broadcasting as a business model." He suggests "onerous record-keeping requirements, ascertainment requirements" and other regulations that have no public interest benefit and "will likely be pure cost."


In other words, ChavezObama's people plan to put so many new regulations on "free broadcasters" that they go out of business without a government bailout/takeover.