Word: fcc
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...awarding valuable broadcast licenses, the Federal Communications Commission gives extra points for minority ownership and civic involvement. Gantt, then mayor of Charlotte, N.C., was part of a group that snared a franchise in 1985 and sold it almost immediately to a white media company. (In a crowning idiocy, the FCC -- having deliberated exquisitely, often for years, over the relative worthiness of contenders for a license -- places virtually no restrictions on how soon or to whom or for how much the winner can sell out.) As a result, on an apparent investment of a few hundred dollars, Gantt made several hundred...
...would be returning politics to speech, not emotive symbols," argues Curtis Gans, the director of the Committee for the Study of the American Electorate. "It isn't attractive television for someone to just stand there and bad-mouth the opposition." Last week People for the American Way petitioned the FCC to mandate that the candidate's likeness appear on-screen for at least four seconds in each TV commercial. Otherwise, the spot would not qualify for reduced advertising rates under current...
Last week the court, which has restricted a number of affirmative-action programs lately, surprised civil rights advocates by approving the FCC rules in a 5-to-4 decision. "Benign race-conscious measures mandated by Congress" are permissible, the majority ruled, if "they serve important governmental objectives." Regardless of the professed policies, the voice of minorities remains barely a whisper; they still hold only 3.5% of the licenses...
...series of FCC hearings earlier this year, a parade of city officials and consumers charged that local cable systems (which in nearly all cases are the sole providers of cable for their areas) have been acting like arrogant monopolies. Deregulation has "created a monster on the loose," said Edward Quaglia, mayor of Herrin, Ill., where cable rates have risen 125% since 1986. Three months ago, New York became the first state to pass consumer-protection legislation aimed at penalizing cable abuses. And last week the New York City board of estimate, in a preliminary vote, refused to renew the Manhattan...
Jokes like these gave the FCC an excuse to muscle and perhaps muzzle the shock jocks, notably New York City's morning maven Howard Stern. Was Stern hurt by this notoriety? Not at all: his show is now aired also in Philadelphia and Washington. Turn him on, and odds are you can't gulp down your morning coffee before you hear him say "penis." Last year, in the guise of his comic superhero Fartman, he placed a call to Iran and mercilessly berated the poor Shi'ite who picked up the phone. Fans of shock-jock jokery highly prize this...