Federal Communications Commission and Censorship

Founded: 1934

Type of organization: U.S. government agency that regulates broadcasting communications

Significance: The FCC has exercised various forms of control over public and private communications systems

Invention of the radio and the spread of radio broadcasting after 1920 gave rise to a need in the United States for overall regulation to ensure that individual radio stations would be assigned broadcasting frequencies that did not interfere with those of other stations. Control of some sort was required to keep order among the increasingly crowded radio frequencies. The task of assigning frequencies and regulating radio stations first fell to the U.S. Department of Commerce. Soon, however, this work became so complicated that Secretary of Commerce Herbert Hoover found that he was devoting too much of his time and effort to it. Meanwhile, despite early federal efforts to control the airwaves, some broadcasters disregarded government mandates and used whatever frequencies they wished.

National Association of Broadcasters

The chaos that characterized early broadcasting in the United States led radio station owners and managers to urge government regulation of the airwaves. Broadcasters needed to protect their own frequencies from the interference of maverick broadcasters. In 1922 a group of radio station executives formed the National Association of Broadcasters, the parent of the Federal Radio Commission (FRC), and the grandparent of the FCC. Members of Congress and other government officials were hounded by angry radio listeners who, after purchasing expensive sets, discovered that they could not listen to their favorite programs without interference from stations unwilling to respect assigned frequencies.

Initially, Secretary of Commerce Hoover wanted the FRC to function as a division of the Department of Commerce. Some skeptics suspected his motives, realizing the potential radio had as a political tool for swaying people and opinions. To counter the danger that radio might be controlled by members of the executive branch of government, California’s Senator Clarence Dill drafted a bill calling for the formation of the FRC, to consist of five members, no three from the same political party, appointed by the president and approved by Congress for set terms. This bill was passed in February, 1927.

Under the Radio Act of 1927, the FRC’s chief duty was to assign frequencies and to regulate broadcasting according to the “public interest, convenience, or necessity.” Despite this mandate, the commissioners were denied the power to censor content, which, throughout the history of the FRC and the FCC, has been protected by First Amendment guarantees. Founded seven years after radio broadcasting began in the United States, the FRC served a necessary, limited function. It was responsible only for radio communications, with the regulation of telephone and telegraph communications falling to the Interstate Commerce Commission (ICC).

Shortly after Franklin D. Roosevelt became president in 1933, the Communications Act of 1934 established the FCC, providing for the appointment by the president of seven commissioners (during the Reagan Administration in the 1980’s this number was reduced to five), whose appointments to seven-year terms required congressional approval. The president was also empowered to designate one FCC member as chair. Roosevelt recommended to Congress that the FCC be made responsible for regulating communication, both domestic and international, by wire as well as by radio, thereby expanding the functions of the commission and shifting responsibility for telephone and telegraph communications from the ICC to the FCC.

Since the 1930’s the FCC has been charged with three major tasks. It must direct the orderly development of broadcasting, cable, and communications services in the United States in keeping with the limitations of technology and economics. It must also obtain and maintain efficient and dependable telephone, telegraph, and common carrier services. Finally, it must provide for the safety of life and property and for the nation’s defense through communication facilities.

FCC Commissioners

FCC commissioner appointments are political. Appointees generally have little background in communications. Their responsibilities have increased significantly as communications have grown in complexity and variety. Proliferation of personal computers and communications systems, such as the Internet, has added a new dimension to the commission’s work. One of the FCC’s major tasks has always been to issue licenses to radio and television stations, whose numbers are huge, and to renew those licenses at regular intervals—currently every seven years for radio and every five for television stations. The commission must satisfy the agency’s most important criterion in issuing and renewing licenses: the commission must be convinced that the station is serving the public interest.

In addition to the regulation of radio, television, telephones, and telegraphs, it falls to the FCC and its commissioners to regulate all other forms of radio communication, including private amateur broadcasting, police, fire, and other emergency use of the airwaves, and cellular telephones. Added to this is responsibility for overseeing such other forms of electronic communication as cable television, satellites, and even electronic garage door and gate openers.

Beyond Technical Matters

In assigning frequencies and otherwise directing radio traffic, the early FCC, like the FRC before it, was essentially concerned with technical matters. Some licenses were withdrawn for cause, although such withdrawals were infrequent, largely because the FCC was forbidden to assume the role of censor. During the 1930’s, the FCC was not one of the Roosevelt Administration’s most illustrious commissions. In 1939, however, with the appointment of James Lawrence Fly, a former attorney for the Tennessee Valley Authority, as FCC chair, the agency’s mission expanded.

Fly thought that FCC concerns should reach beyond technical matters. For example, he believed that the public would best be served if the commission prevented any network from having more than one station in any single community. At that time the two major networks were the Columbia Broadcasting System (CBS) and the National Broadcasting Company (NBC). NBC operated the red and the blue networks, which gave it two networks in many communities. The FCC’s Report on Chain Broadcasting (1941) outlawed this practice and, by 1943, NBC had been forced to sell its blue network, which became the American Broadcasting Company. Fly reasoned that with additional competition, the networks would improve programming and better serve the public interest. After he left the FCC in 1944, the commission entered a period of relatively routine operation.

Controversial Actions of the FCC

For most of its existence, the FCC enforced the fairness doctrine, under which air time was given for opposing views in controversial matters. This policy became cumbersome during political campaigns, however, when two or three serious candidates seeking an office had to share air time with many other candidates for the same office who had no realistic hope of success. In 1986 the fairness doctrine was abolished. Congress introduced legislation to make the doctrine law, but President Ronald Reagan vetoed the bill. When Congress could not override his veto, the FCC was free to eliminate the regulation from its official policies. Later efforts to revive the fairness doctrine failed.

In 1988 the House of Representatives voted to enact legislation that would restrict the amount of advertising permitted on children’s programming. The legislation called for the FCC to take into account stations’ compliance to this law when renewing licenses. President Reagan, citing constitutional violations relating to freedom of expression, vetoed the bill immediately before Congress adjourned, therefore denying it the opportunity to override his veto. The FCC repealed its regulations regarding this matter in 1984, thereby supporting Reagan’s action.

Perhaps the most controversial matter with which the FCC has dealt is indecency. The question of how indecency, obscenity, or profanity are defined has perplexed the commission and the courts for years. First Amendment guarantees have generally prevailed, after several essential tests are applied to questionable material. First, does the dominant theme of the material appeal to a prurient interest in sex? Second, is material offensive because it violates contemporary community standards regarding the description or representation of sexual matters? Finally, does the material, taken as a whole, lack serious literary, artistic, political, or scientific value?

The test, as intended, cannot be applied merely to part of a work. Any work deemed offensive must be viewed as a whole. The question also arises of whether radio and television programming should be held to higher standards than some of the other arts, inasmuch as they are more easily accessible to young children and to others who might stumble upon offensive programs rather than seeking them out. The FCC, nevertheless, is forced by the mandates under which it operates carefully to observe the thin line between obscenity and art.

As the FCC involved itself in a number of obscenity cases, most were resolved by the stations in question paying token fines rather than engaging in costly litigation. In 1973 comedian George Carlin broadcast a nightclub act in which he uttered the seven obscene words that were not allowed on American radio and television stations. Carlin’s use of these words was defended partly on the basis of his being a well-recognized satirist and partly because it was clear that these words themselves did not lead members of his audience to engage in prurient sexual behavior. The counterargument was that Carlin’s offending dialogue was broadcast at a time when children might be listening to the radio. The FCC, however, penalized neither Carlin nor the Pacifica Foundation station that broadcast his performance. Rather it served notice indirectly that it might invoke the indecency clause in the future.

FCC Bureaus

The FCC has four bureaus. The mass media bureau assigns stations space within the available broadcast frequencies. It reviews applications for licenses and renewal requests. With the continued increase in radio and television stations and with the growth of cable television, this bureau’s responsibilities have increased dramatically. The common carrier bureau determines the interstate rates and services of telephone and telegraph companies, as well as radio and satellite companies. This is a considerably smaller bureau than the mass media bureau. The private radio bureau regulates all nonpublic electronic communication, such as ham radio, radio frequencies of police and fire departments, remote control devices that use radio frequencies, and personal radio communications facilities. The field operation bureau inspects nationwide the facilities of radio and television stations and monitors their operations. This bureau works through a coordinated network of field offices and operates a substantial fleet of mobile units. Each bureau is answerable to members of the FCC and their chair, who are overseen by the Congress. The bureaus have been cognizant of the nonpolitical nature of the commission and must guard against acting as censors.

Bibliography

James R. Bennett’s Control of Information in the United States: An Annotated Bibliography (Westport, Conn.: Meckler, 1987) will lead readers to many additional sources. William B. Ray’s FCC: The Ups and Downs of Radio-TV Regulation (Ames: Iowa State University Press, 1990) provides an insider’s view of the commission by an expert on broadcast law. A valuable adjunct to Ray’s book is James L. Baughman’s Television’s Guardians: The FCC and the Politics of Programming 1958-1967 (Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 1985), which, although covering a limited period, provides a useful overview of an important period of the FCC. Henry Geller’s The Fairness Doctrine in Broadcasting (Santa Monica, Calif.: Rand, 1973) discusses a crucial concept in depth. More recent is Sydney W. Head and Christopher H. Sterling, Broadcasting in America (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1987).