The Federal Communications Commission has lost its mind.
If it ever had one.
The FCC has a history of getting crazy acts overturned - especially when involving the Internet. At least three children protection acts have been overturned in the last 10 years.
Now, this is somewhat understandable. The Internet is something relatively new to our mass media and everybody is still learning how to regulate something of its nature.
But television and radio have been around for approximately 100 years, and the FCC has been regulating these forms of mass media since it established the Radio Act of 1912. Since then it has kept an eye on our media, cleaned up radio confusion in the '30s with the Communication Act of 1934 that restricted bands people could use for television and radio, started licencings and understood that there is a scarcity of spectrum - there are only so many stations out there, and they shouldn't all be controlled by one person.
The FCC continued to control stations, even as huge corporations started taking over the airwaves. At one point, NBC made an attempt to broadcast on two networks and was stopped by the FCC.
Until last week, one could even say this commission is pretty strict.
But in the FCC's old age, it is loosening the reins.
On June 2, the FCC voted to give some slack in ownership regulations on the media. Instead of only letting a station owner to broadcast to 35 percent of the country, they can now hit 45 percent.
So what's the big deal?
It's called the slippery slope, people.
What is going to stop the FCC from, in the future, bumping this number up again? Not much. Especially when it's getting pressure from big corporations like Viacom to deregulate.
And why not deregulate?
Because eventually, you will never know what is happening in your own town. Local stations won't be able to hold out to the Viacoms of the world, and they will fall apart. We will all be getting our news from the same source: MTV, CBS, BET, or one of the other 36 stations owned by Viacom, or one of the hundreds owned by ABC, NBC or FOX.
Although the FCC prohibited any merger among ABC, NBC, FOX and CBS, mergers are already happening. At the announcement of the FCC decision, CBS was bought by Viacom for $36 billion.
The Viacom president called this move by the FCC an act of liberty and the public outcries unnecessary. "Our total advertising revenue is $12 billion out of a market of $300 billion," he said. "There are still thousands of radio stations and owners of television stations. The facts don't support the emotional and unfounded issues raised by some people."
We don't think he's heard of the slippery slope.
And the future looks slippery.
