Broadcast Regulation Research Articles

Global and Local Forces for a Nation-State Yet to be Born: The Paradoxes of Palestinian Television Policies

Tracing the history of Palestinian television industry from its birth in 1993 to the mid-2000’s, this paper analyzes changing television policies and discusses the influences of the Palestinian Authority and Israel in hijacking media policy for their own political purposes. Palestinian broadcasting regulations have been caught in a bind: reflecting the geographic, political and economic conditions of the Territories – fragmented, isolated and in a state of arrested development; and responding to regional cultural changes, such as the rise of pan-Arab satellite television, and political challenges stemming from the Palestinian-Israeli conflict.

Who gets the spectrum? [broadcasting regulation

A fierce fight is developing in the UK over what should happen to the spectrum freed up by the switching off of analogue television.

Broadcast Regulation and the Public Interest

Broadcast Regulation and the Public Interest

Television on the Internet: Regulating new ways of viewing

Television has become ingrained in our modern way of life. Governments across the world have recognised this and sought to control what may be broadcast and what different audiences may watch. These regulatory regimes have been focused on the traditional television set. However, the Internet has begun to threaten this established order as new ways of viewing audio-visual content have become available and legal systems have not easily accommodated these new developments. Government policy in the United Kingdom is not to regulate Internet content in order to encourage the development of compelling new content services. However, the drafting of the legislative measures intended to give effect to that policy are potentially flawed. They appear to bring some television content on the Internet within the scope of broadcast regulation, but without any means for the content service provider to acquire the appropriate licence. TV Licensing has recently brought the issue to the fore by declaring that a licence is required to watch television on the Internet. If a television licence is required to watch a particular programme on the Internet, then surely a licence was required to broadcast that programme? In this article, it is argued that the Communications Act must be interpreted such that no Internet content is subject to its provisions. The Communications (Television Licensing) Regulations must also be interpreted so that a viewer only requires a licence where the broadcast signal has been captured and converted. Finally, while it is difficult to support a position that subjects two organisations showing the same programme content to different requirements solely as a result of the transmission technology used, the European Commission's proposals to unify the regulatory field are unlikely to achieve what they set out to do. I believe that what is going on here is not a revolution as some had predicted, but it is a gentle, gradual, evolving, historic act of liberation. The liberty of consumers, viewers, listeners, to determine their own viewing, their own listening, their own schedule, their own compilations, their own content, and even their own services. (Richards, 2005)

The emergence of IP interactive multimedia services and the evolution of the traditional audiovisual public service regulatory approach

The emergence of IP multimedia services represents another step towards convergence and implies a series of new challenges for market players and for regulatory bodies. Specifically, the regulation applied to the audiovisual sector must develop from its current situation to a higher level of competition and transparency in converged markets. This article analyses the capability of the current framework to answer these challenges and gives some proposals for its possible transformation, in particular that of the traditional public service, the traditional basis for audiovisual broadcasting regulation.

Market Competition, Station Ownership, and Local Public Affairs Programming on Broadcast Television

This study examines the relationship between competitive conditions in television markets, ownership characteristics, and commercial broadcast television station provision of local public affairs programming. The results from an analysis of a random sample of 285 fullpower television stations showed that half of the stations in the sample did not air any local public affairs programming during the 2-week sample period. Among the study’s other findings are that competitive conditions and station financial resources do not necessarily increase the provision of local public affairs programming and that ownership characteristics bear little meaningful relationship to local public affairs programming provision. doi:10.1111/j.1460-2466.2006.00320.x In the U.S. system of broadcast regulation, the provision of locally produced informational programming traditionally has been considered an important component of a station’s fulfillment of its obligation to serve the public interest (Federal Communications Commission [FCC], 1999b), with informational programming generally defined as local news and public affairs programming. It is through the provision of such programming that stations are able to serve the informational needs and interests of their local communities. This localism principle refers to media policy makers’ long-standing commitment to assuring that media services effectively serve and reflect the needs and interests of local communities—as opposed to having a primarily national or regional orientation in the services that they provide (FCC, 2004). The manifestation of this principle at one point took the form of specific FCC-imposed requirements for minimum levels of local news and public affairs programming (FCC, 1976). The FCC traditionally has operated under separate definitions of news and local public affairs programming. The commission has defined public affairs programming (the focus of this analysis) as ‘‘programs dealing with local, state, regional, national or

Origins of American Broadcast Regulation: A Revisionist Theory

It is widely believed that radio regulation imposed by the 1927 Radio Act was required to control signal interference that threatened broadcasting with a tragedy of the commons: too many stations producing interfering signals. Thomas W. Hazlett (1990, 2001) disputes this view, contending that powers adequate to cope with interference were already provided by the 1912 Radio Act, but, more important, that no such government regulation was needed to eliminate signal interference, a fact well known to policymakers of the period. This article evaluates Hazlett's claims.

Out of Thin Air: Using First Amendment Public Forum Analysis to Redeem American Broadcasting Regulation

American television and radio broadcasters are uniquely privileged among Federal Communications Commission (FCC) licensees. Exalted as public trustees by the 1934 Communications Act, broadcasters pay virtually nothing for the use of their channels of public radiofrequency spectrum, unlike many other FCC licensees who have paid billions of dollars for similar digital spectrum. Congress envisioned a social contract of sorts between broadcast licensees and the communities they served. In exchange for their free licenses, broadcast stations were charged with providing a platform for a "free marketplace of ideas" that would cultivate a democratically engaged and enlightened citizenry through the broadcasting of "public interest" programming. Few, other than the broadcasters themselves, would dispute that this "public trustee" doctrine has been a dismal failure. In exchange for the tens of billions of dollars of advertising revenue generated by their licenses, commercial television and radio broadcasters air very little-and some air none-of the kinds of locally oriented public affairs, political, educational, and cultural programming traditionally considered "public interest" fare. Congress and the FCC have failed to correct the mismatch between the proven profit-making power of public trusteeship and its anemic returns for the American people. To the contrary, Congress and the FCC, captured by the broadcast industry they regulate, have continued to subsidize commercial broadcasters constructively by awarding them new lucrative digital channels at no cost to them, while lifting ownership concentration limits and eliminating or failing to enforce the few remaining public interest programming requirements. This Article begins by surveying the history of the public trustee doctrine, its First Amendment contradictions, and the legislative and regulatory failures and frustrations that have bedeviled the pursuit of a 'free marketplace of ideas" on the nation's airwaves. It then explores the First Amendment's public forum doctrine as an alternative justification for government regulation of the public spectrum, reasoning in favor of the government's proactive creation and maintenance of public speech fora. After examining the Internet both as a public forum and as the sort of "free marketplace of ideas" that the broadcast spectrum was expected-but failed to create, this Article argues that an affirmative public forum doctrine supports a requirement that broadcasters subsidize broadband Internet access in low-income and underserved communities.

La participación ciudadana desde la óptica de la ley de responsabilidad social en radio y televisión de Venezuela

At the end of 2004, a decree about the Law of Social Responsibility on radio and television was approved by the National Assembly of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela. The debate about this controversial Law (known by its initials in Spanish as the «Ley Resorte»), has been hard in every sector of society and has been in the «hurricane center» in the last years. The aim of this article is to analyze one of its most innovating aspects: the creation of legal mechanisms which promote the participation of the citizens in the regulation, control and emission of broadcasting and television contents and the real fulfilment of this Law. El siete de diciembre de 2004, en el Palacio Federal Legislativo, sede de la Asamblea Nacional de la República Bolivariana de Venezuela se aprobó el decreto de la Ley de Responsabilidad Social en Radio y Televisión. En el artículo primero de la citada ley se expresa que la misma tiene por objeto establecer, en la difusión y recepción de mensajes, la responsabilidad social de los prestadores de los servicios de radio y televisión, los anunciantes, los productores nacionales independientes y los usuarios y usuarias. Con ella, se persigue fomentar el equilibrio democrático entre sus deberes, derechos e intereses de los ciudadanos y ciudadanas a los fines de promover la justicia social y de contribuir con la formación de la ciudadanía, la democracia, la paz, los derechos humanos, la cultura, la educación, la salud y el desarrollo social y económico de la nación. Antes de la promulgación de esta ley, la legislación sobre comunicaciones en Venezuela se inspiraba en una ley de 1940. Algunas décadas más tarde, en 2002, aparece una propuesta del anteproyecto de Ley sobre la «responsabilidad social en la prestación de los servicios de divulgación audiovisual y sonora» de la mano del Consejo Nacional de Telecomunicaciones (CONATEL). Después de un intenso debate en todas las instancias, en enero de 2003 se introdujo en el Parlamento Nacional el proyecto de «Ley sobre la responsabilidad social en radio y televisión» que, con sus variaciones, finalmente fue aprobado casi dos años más tarde. El debate sobre esta ley conocida como «Resorte» por sus siglas (o «ley mordaza», dependiendo de quien opine) ha sido arduo en todos los sectores y ha estado «en el ojo del huracán», sobre todo desde los sucesos acaecidos en el mes de abril de 2002 con el golpe de estado del que fuera objeto el presidente electo Hugo Chávez Frías. En aquella época, quien fuera editor de los telediarios de más audiencia («El Observador» emitido por Radio Caracas Televisión), Andrés Izarra, renunció al canal argumentando que estaba sometido a un «extremo estrés emocional» ya que estaba siendo obligado a silenciar lo que ocurría en las calles del país. Hoy por hoy Izarra es Ministro de Información y Comunicación. El contenido de esta Ley se aplica a toda imagen o sonido cuya difusión y recepción tengan lugar dentro del territorio de la República Bolivariana de Venezuela, y sea realizada a través de los servicios de radio o televisión públicos o privados. Por supuesto, la televisión ocupa una de las áreas reguladas en esta ley, ya que constituye uno de los elementos fundamentales que intervienen en la nueva configuración de la «Sociedad de la Información » y su paso a la «Sociedad del Conocimiento». Además, cada vez está más clara la contribución de la televisión en el desarrollo de las regiones y en la construcción cultural de las mismas, así como su papel estratégico como motor del desarrollo regional. Asimismo, resulta determinante la gran importancia que está adquiriendo la industria televisiva en todos los lugares del mundo, y en concreto en Venezuela, hecho éste que demuestra que la falta de consolidación y crecimiento del sector audiovisual puede contribuir a incrementar las diferencias entre las naciones.

La participación ciudadana desde la óptica de la ley de responsabilidad social en radio y televisión de Venezuela

At the end of 2004, a decree about the Law of Social Responsibility on radio and television was approved by the National Assembly of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela. The debate about this controversial Law (known by its initials in Spanish as the «Ley Resorte»), has been hard in every sector of society and has been in the «hurricane center» in the last years. The aim of this article is to analyze one of its most innovating aspects: the creation of legal mechanisms which promote the participation of the citizens in the regulation, control and emission of broadcasting and television contents and the real fulfilment of this Law.

Different strokes for different folk: Regulatory distinctions in New Zealand media

For much of the past century there was broad acceptance of the stark contrast between the state’s involvement in the regulation of the content of broadcasting and its laissez-faire relationship with the columns of the press. The ‘failed market’ argument that substantiated regulation of the airwaves was difficult to counter. Fundamental changes in technology and media markets have, however, rendered the rationale open to challenge. Some aspects of the ‘failed market’, such as frequency scarcity, simply do not apply in the digital age. This article examines the nature of media regulation in New Zealand, noting its similarity to the dichotomous approach in Britain, Canada and Australia but also its divergence toward a more neoliberal market model that largely limits statutory oversight to matters that fall broadly into the categories of morals and ethics. It argues that, given the New Zealand government’s decision more than 15 years ago to forego regulation of ownership or the mechanisms that would serve the public good aspirations of a Reithian model, the continuing role of the state in regulation of broadcasting is questionable. A replacement model could be based on an effective regulatory body already present in the New Zealand media industry—the Advertising Standards Authority

Critically Examining Theory and Practice: Implications for Coregulation and Coregulating Broadcast Advertising in the United Kingdom

This research critically examines the debate and issues surrounding theory and practice concerning regulation and advertising self-regulation with the aim of understanding more fully the implications for the future of coregulation, as well as for coregulating broadcast advertising. Regulatory reform in the United Kingdom, including the creation of the Office of Communications (Ofcom) as a unified regulator for the communications industry, has led to contracting out the regulation of broadcast advertising to an industry coregulator. As a result of a critical examination of theory and practice, important theoretical and managerial implications are made regarding effective interfacing with public and consumer bodies as well as approaches to issues of media convergence. Such analyses and implications are important for understanding better the potential for effectiveness and viability of coregulation as well as for evaluating the likelihood of returning to statutory regulation.

WLBT News in the Deregulation Era

The Federal Communications Commission no longer keeps a microscopic watch on television stations as it did in years past. This being the case, could stations falter in their public interest obligations? This is an important question because of the power of television news. The present research examines WLBT News in Jackson, Mississippi. This article does not contend that WLBT News should adhere to a higher standard for public interest than the other stations in its market. WLBT holds a distinctive place in broadcast history. WLBT was the first television station to lose its broadcast license for anti-public interest reasons during an era of heavy broadcast regulation. The content of the newscasts were read as “text” and interpreted with semiotic methodolgy in terms of their symbolic and cultural meanings about race. The results of the study suggest that there is more to the messages in the newscasts than what meets the eye at first glance.

On Media and Politics:Between Enlightened Authorityand Social Responsibility

This article challenges the dominant ‘victimizing’ overtones offering a balanced view of the love-hate interaction between politics and media in Israel. The political institution, and politicians in particular, are not helpless 'victims' up against the terrible media. The ongoing broadcast regulation that results in a three-stage process – maturation, implementation, negotiation – may characterize the relations between the two branches of the Israeli democracy. In the stage of maturation, possibly for months and even years, the political and economic circumstances enable the adoption of a medium innovation. In the implementation stage, the actual constaints are revealed, as expected, some of which are predictable and others unforeseen. In the final phase, the stage of negotiation, in light of the aforementioned gaps, bargain is held between the franchisers and the government, usually at the initiative of the former. These relations are analogous with a pendulum swinging between the authoritarian approach, common in various regimes and in societies situated in the midst of a national struggle, and between the social responsibility approach, conventional in Western democracies.

An Economic Theory of Censorship

Broadcast regulation can exploit sunk costs as a means of exerting control over the content of broadcast speech-to compel favored speech and to suppress disfavored speech. One conspicuous FCC policy that manifests rent extraction is the newspaper-television cross-ownership prohibition. A rent-extraction model of broadcast regulation shows how such seemingly "structural" regulation can facilitate the government's influence over broadcast content and, indeed, why it is advantageous for the FCC consciously to embed methods of influencing broadcast content within regulations that are likely to be subjected to lessened degrees of judicial scrutiny.

An Economic Theory of Censorship

Broadcast regulation can exploit sunk costs as a means of exerting control over the content of broadcast speech to compel favored speech and to suppress disfavored speech. One conspicuous FCC policy that manifests rent extraction is the newspaper-television cross-ownership prohibition. A rent-extraction model of broadcast regulation shows how such seemingly structural regulation can facilitate the government's influence over broadcast content and, indeed, why it is advantageous for the FCC consciously to embed methods of influencing broadcast content within regulations that are likely to be subjected to lessened degrees of judicial scrutiny. Federal regulators since the early 1930s have sought to control broadcast content. With that experience as prologue, the FCC's sustained inability to provide a persuasive rationale for the newspaper-television cross-ownership rule invites the question whether the rule serves a function that is politically expedient, opaque, and durable but constitutionally illegitimate. Through economic analysis, one can hypothesize such a function. Though ostensibly a structural regulation of the broadcast industry, the newspaper-television cross-ownership rule increases a broadcaster's vulnerability to political efforts to control content. The rule does so by raising the amount of the broadcaster's investment in his station that is at risk of loss if the FCC does not renew his license. Asset-specific investment by the broadcaster exposes him to the risk that the regulator can influence the broadcaster's content choices by threatening to terminate the revenue stream necessary to recover the portion of the cost of his asset-specific investment that remains undepreciated at the end of the current license term. The regulator's ability to block cost recovery of the broadcaster's undepreciated asset-specific investments thus can provide the lever for government control of broadcast content. Extreme skepticism is therefore warranted when the FCC represents that the newspaper-television cross-ownership rule has no potential to infringe freedom of speech or of the press. This economic theory of censorship is consistent with the words and actions of several U.S. Senators in 1987 who sponsored legislation subsequently found by the D.C. Circuit to violate the First Amendment rights of Rupert Murdoch. The News America case from 1987 is evidence that enforcement of the rule by the FCC is susceptible to influence by those in government who wish to punish publishers and broadcasters who criticize powerful public officials.

Radio Regulation Revisited: Coase, the FCC, and the Public Interest

It is now more than forty years since Ronald Coase's seminal article on the Federal Communications Commission first appeared in the pages of the Journal of Law and Economics. The article remains important for a number of reasons, not least of which is that it offered his first articulation of the Coase Theorem. Of even greater importance for our purposes, the article literally redefined the terms of debate over American broadcast regulation, in both historical and contemporary treatments of the subject.

Abundant Media, Viewer Scarcity: A Marketplace Alternative to First Amendment Broadcast Rights and the Regulation of Televised Presidential Debates

This Article develops a theory for evaluating the First Amendment rights of broadcast television networks using the market power tests employed in antitrust economics. The Article begins by observing the importance of the candidate debates during the 2000 presidential election. The importance of the presidential debates, however, might soon prove insufficient to surmount the costs of network broadcasting. In the past decade, broadcast networks have watched viewers depart in record numbers, lured away by new technology and an ever-increasing array of media alternatives. Television networks have long questioned their role as guardians of the public interest and during the 2000 election, two networks refused to air the first of the presidential debates. With no end to network troubles in sight, the 2004 elections could lack any unified television coverage. Preserving the historic importance of the televised presidential debates will require the courts to confront the foundation of broadcast regulation in the United States and the doctrine of spectrum scarcity used to justify broadcast monopoly power. Scarcity theories, long criticized as economically inefficient, have now been attacked as scientifically flawed and incompatible with the new digital world. Today, many argue that increased competition in broadcast media provides a better guarantee of the public interest than intrusive government oversight. Trusting the market, however, might ignore the unequal access to new broadcast technologies and trap large numbers of the American electorate behind the digital divide. A solution to the chaos of the First Amendment rights of broadcasters is necessary and available in the same economic analysis that supports the criticism of the current state of the law. Using the reasoning of the Supreme Court's two most recent First Amendment broadcasting decisions, Reno v. ACLU and Turner Broadcasting System, Inc. v. FCC, this Article suggests that the First Amendment rights of broadcasters should be determined by the market power of their broadcast content. Market power provides a dividing line between the scarce media of broadcast television and the plentiful resources of the digital spectrum. Full First Amendment protections for only converged broadcast media will retain administrative regulation over lagging technologies while inducing broadcasters to speed the development of broadband. This Article then applies this new standard of review to a model broadcast debate regulation compelling the networks to provide live coverage of the general presidential debates. Despite the emerging alternatives to broadcast television and the competing sources of campaign information, the Article concludes that televised coverage of the general presidential debates comprises a single content market concentrated among the broadcast networks. Technological advancements might soon transform our understanding of broadcasting. Until then, this Article concludes that federal oversight of the televised presidential debates is an appropriate and necessary limitation on the First Amendment rights of networks.

Playing the Game by the Rules? Television Regulation Around China’S Entry into WTO

China’s entry into the World Trade Organization (WTO) heated up discussions on the importance and urgency of regulatory reform in Chinese television. Entering the WTO means, first and foremost, situating China in a legal framework that is communicative, negotiable and operational within international (primarily Western) standards. For Chinese media, such reform suggests an important move on part of the Chinese government from traditional political control to legal regulation. This paper reviews the development of television regulations in China in the reform era. It begins with a brief introduction to a few Chinese key words, Fa Zhi (law) and Gui Zhi (regulation), against the background of China’s legal reforms. It then proceeds to show the development of Chinese broadcasting regulations in a changed industrial environment. Next, it examines regulations of Chinese television, focusing on organizational restructuring and program disciplining. The paper concludes with a brief discussion of the prospects and problems of regulatory reform, especially within the context of globalization. Far from most optimistic predictions, this paper argues that to date regulatory changes in Chinese television are more restrictive than liberalising; and that transformation of China's television from administrative control to lawful regulation still has a long way to go.

When too much sport is barely enough: Broadcasting regulation and national identity

Sport and broadcasting appear to enjoy a symbiotic relationship. Similarly, sport seems to play a central role in many current understandings of national identity. In this article, we explore some of the ways in which the legal regulation of sport broadcasting is often couched in terms of the protection of an essential, yet ill-defined, national interest. We offer a series of critiques of the competing interests at stake under such regulatory regimes - market power and competition, legally entrenched preferences for certain broadcast technologies, democracy and the construction of national identity. Through a critical and comparative analysis of the legal system of anti-siphoning and anti-hoarding legislation in effect in Australia, we attempt to highlight the confused and confusing state of broadcasting regulation there and in other jurisdictions in relation to access to key sporting events on television.