View From the Phlipside - FCC

My name is Jay Phillippi and I've spent my life in and around the media. TV, Radio, the Movies and more. I love them and I hate them and I always have an opinion. Call this the View From the Phlipside.

There comes a time when you just need to trade in your old stuff and move on to something new. I’m not talking about tossing something perfectly workable aside for the latest fashion. Rather I’m thinking that eventually things become obsolete, worn out and no longer able to fulfill the function for which they were created.

I’m beginning to wonder if the Federal Communication Commission(the FCC) might not be in that category. Now don’t leap to the conclusion that I’m in favor of jettisoning all governmental supervision of just about anything. I believe that we need a supervisory governmental agency protecting access to the public airwaves. I’m just not sure that the model created in 1934 and largely unchanged since then still fits the bill.

Back in the day the FCC was given oversight of the radio and television airwaves. Control of them was done largely through a licensing system. Every station has to obtain a license and obey certain rules in order to keep it. A basic carrot and stick approach. That worked pretty well for a long time. Well kinda. Now the FCC is also charged with oversight things like satellite and cable communications and the internet. And the carrot and stick don’t work as well.

The Commission spends a lot of time worrying about indecency, whatever that means. It has tightened the rules on obscene language to the point that news reports and documentaries could result in fines of considerable size to the stations. Now even that function is being challenged when a federal appeals court struck down long standing rules as being in violation of the Constitution.

What we’ve got is the equivalent a 1934 vintage police car trying to catch a 2010 sports car. What began with the FCC not wanting to hear George Carlin’s “Seven Dirty Words” turned into trying to fine every single TV station that carried the Super Bowl for airing Janet Jackson’s “wardrobe malfunction”. The Commission has become increasingly more political in the last 20 years and increasingly more challenged to deal with the modern media world.

We certainly need something. I’m just not sure that Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s solutions work in Barack Obama’s world.

Call that the View From the Phlipside.

"The View From the Phlipside" airs on WRFA-LP Jamestown NY.  You can listen to WRFA online HERE
Copyright - Jay Phillippi 2010