00:00The FCC has been making more and more headlines. There's been calls from the president and some on
00:05the right for the FCC to take action against what they see as biased or fake news across public
00:12airwaves. There's also been some concern largely from those on the left over whether the FCC would
00:19overreach its authority by making content decisions. Recently propelled after FCC chair
00:25Brendan Carr weighed in over the Jimmy Kimmel controversy suggesting ABC should take him off
00:31air which they ultimately did but only briefly. With all the talk about the FCC let's take a step
00:40back from the noise and look at the bigger picture. What the Federal Communications Commission is
00:45responsible for. How it served at different capacities as a regulatory enforcer over the years
00:52and why one media law expert says the changing media landscape we're in today
00:57could drastically change the FCC's role. Since the 30s the FCC has had the authority to regulate
01:06broadcasters including some forms of content regulation. David Oxenford is a broadcast and
01:15digital media law attorney. He spoke with Straight Arrow News about the long-standing history of the
01:20FCC and how the agency has been at the center of free speech and public interest debates for many years.
01:28The FCC was established in 1934 installing a list of regulations and standards for radio and later TV
01:36broadcasters. Prior to the 1980s the FCC had some very strict requirements as to the number
01:46the number of minutes of news reporting that stations had to do. The number of minutes of public affairs
01:54programming that stations had to do. At this point in time broadcasters were also abiding what was called
02:01the fairness doctrine which was an FCC policy introduced in 1949 and required broadcasts to present controversial
02:10public issues in a fair and balanced manner and requiring equal airtime to opposing viewpoints.
02:17And that was done away with 30 years ago because of the first amendment concerns. Basically the FCC
02:26determined hey we can't impose after some court questions we can't impose the fairness doctrine we can
02:33enforce the fairness doctrine consistent with our statutory obligation to stay out of the first
02:40amendment issues. While there were stricter FCC regulations in the immediate decades after it was
02:46established a deregulation era took place in the 1980s under Republican President Ronald Reagan repealing
02:53that fairness doctrine and also repealing other broadcast regulations including ownership limits being
03:00loosened and public interest requirements easing all in the name of free speech. There is a clear
03:08statutory requirement imposed by Congress that the FCC not abridge the free speech rights of broadcasters. Since
03:18that era of deregulation 30 years ago there have been questions over whether the rules and standards
03:24ease too much. Since then there have been many questions raised at different points in time as to whether
03:35the FCC should go back to some sort of quantitative requirements or some more specific obligations to be imposed by broadcasters for their obligation to serve the needs and interests of their community. Broadcasters who have FCC licenses do have rules to follow. One being they must operate in the public interest,
03:57something that can be interpreted differently. I think there are questions about whether the public interest
04:05itself gives the FCC the authority to make up regulatory requirements that aren't set out by Congress.
04:14um throughout the FCC's um throughout the FCC's history there has been there have been attempts to determine exactly what is in the public interest for um broadcasters who are generally supposed to meet the needs and interests of the communities that they serve. Both Republican and Democratic administrations of recent have looked
04:43looked into the scope of the FCC's regulatory power. In 2005 President George W Bush signed the Broadcast Decency Enforcement Act legislation that increased FCC fines for obscenity and indecency broadcasted on public airwaves. I think the last probably instance in where the FCC really captured the public imagination was in some of the indecency regulation that they have engaged in over the years.
05:13The Janet Jackson incident during the Super Bowl. That Janet Jackson wardrobe malfunction directly coincided with Bush's legislation. Oxenford says there's been other more recent studies over whether FCC regulations should expand in the name of public interest. In the first part of the Obama administration there was a big study commissioned about the informational needs of communities. Again, a big study was done. A
05:43Report was put out and then nothing happened because it's so hard for the government to regulate what broadcasters should be doing consistent with the first amendment. It's a double-edged sword here enforcing public interest without infringing on free speech. And that's a tricky balance for the FCC.
06:08It's very difficult to adopt general rules that don't put the government in the position of assessing speech to determine what is and is not in the public interest.
06:27Back in the 40s and 50s, radio and TV was a scarcity. Not everyone could broadcast. And because of that, the FCC said broadcasters had a special responsibility to the public. But Oxenford raises the question of whether today's changing media landscape could one day change that.
06:47There's questions today about whether that scarcity doctrine that justified regulation of broadcasters still applies. Broadcasting is no longer the single ubiquitous way, the way that everybody gets their news and information.
07:07People don't even have radios and over-their TVs in their homes. So whether any content regulation still makes sense for broadcasters, I think, is an open question and probably one that the courts will be addressing in the years ahead.
07:28So I think a lot of the justification for the FCC's regulation of broadcasting may over time disappear.
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