Comments on: Vote community standards off the island http://www.jerrybrito.com/2003/05/13/vote-community-standards-off-the-island/ Thu, 04 Dec 2008 04:27:05 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.5.1 By: Aaron Stanley http://www.jerrybrito.com/2003/05/13/vote-community-standards-off-the-island/#comment-46 Aaron Stanley Fri, 16 May 2003 21:09:14 +0000 http://www.jerrybrito.com/blog/2003/05/13/vote-community-standards-off-the-island/#comment-46 It looks like there are a lot of reforms going on over at Powell's FCC. They've already agreed to allow certain spectrum owners to trade/lease the portions of the spectrum they own. It doesn't affect TV/radio, it seems, but it is a step in the right direction. link: <a href="http://dc.internet.com/news/article.php/2208021" rel="nofollow">http://dc.internet.com/news/article.php/2208021</a> I hope that there will be some more radical changes going forward, but even if there aren't the media ownership rules are crummy right now. As you've said, Jerry, there's nobody forcing small broadcasters to sell their stations, they choose to because it's difficult for them to make money. This is unfortunate, but it's not a market failure that needs to be corrected by the FCC, it's a change that the consumers need to affect. It looks like there are a lot of reforms going on over at Powell’s FCC. They’ve already agreed to allow certain spectrum owners to trade/lease the portions of the spectrum they own. It doesn’t affect TV/radio, it seems, but it is a step in the right direction.

link: http://dc.internet.com/news/article.php/2208021

I hope that there will be some more radical changes going forward, but even if there aren’t the media ownership rules are crummy right now. As you’ve said, Jerry, there’s nobody forcing small broadcasters to sell their stations, they choose to because it’s difficult for them to make money. This is unfortunate, but it’s not a market failure that needs to be corrected by the FCC, it’s a change that the consumers need to affect.

]]> By: Jerry Brito http://www.jerrybrito.com/2003/05/13/vote-community-standards-off-the-island/#comment-45 Jerry Brito Fri, 16 May 2003 08:15:14 +0000 http://www.jerrybrito.com/blog/2003/05/13/vote-community-standards-off-the-island/#comment-45 Amy, I agree completely. I would love to see property rights in spectrum, but that's unlikely to happen anytime soon. Nevertheless, there might be technological workarounds to the government's monopoly of the airwaves. Over-the-air TV and radio inefficiently hog huge swaths of spectrum. Satellite TV and radio use spectrum much more efficiently, and cable offers tons of bandwidth using no spectrum. New technologies (like ultrawideband and time division duplex) continue to increase the amount of bandwidth that can be squeezed out of existing spectrum. Eventually, these technologies will make the government's power to decide who gets a traditional over-the-air radio or TV station license irrelevant because there will be other preferred methods of reception. These technologies have the potential to make over-the-air obsolete. Ultimately, there will be so much money to be potentially made by more efficiently reassigning misused spectrum that the corporate pressure on the FCC will be unbearable. Maybe then it will auction of assignable spectrum licenses (if not property rights) to the highest bidders--probably for wireless services we can't even imagine today. Amy, I agree completely. I would love to see property rights in spectrum, but that’s unlikely to happen anytime soon. Nevertheless, there might be technological workarounds to the government’s monopoly of the airwaves. Over-the-air TV and radio inefficiently hog huge swaths of spectrum. Satellite TV and radio use spectrum much more efficiently, and cable offers tons of bandwidth using no spectrum. New technologies (like ultrawideband and time division duplex) continue to increase the amount of bandwidth that can be squeezed out of existing spectrum. Eventually, these technologies will make the government’s power to decide who gets a traditional over-the-air radio or TV station license irrelevant because there will be other preferred methods of reception.

These technologies have the potential to make over-the-air obsolete. Ultimately, there will be so much money to be potentially made by more efficiently reassigning misused spectrum that the corporate pressure on the FCC will be unbearable. Maybe then it will auction of assignable spectrum licenses (if not property rights) to the highest bidders–probably for wireless services we can’t even imagine today.

]]> By: Amy Phillips http://www.jerrybrito.com/2003/05/13/vote-community-standards-off-the-island/#comment-44 Amy Phillips Thu, 15 May 2003 22:26:58 +0000 http://www.jerrybrito.com/blog/2003/05/13/vote-community-standards-off-the-island/#comment-44 The only real problem that I have with the deregulation scheme currently being discussed is that it doesn't do anything about the problem of the government monopoly over the airwaves. The way that deregulation works requires that anyone with the capital to do so can get into the game. Then, competition can weed out the bad ones and allow the good ones to thrive. That's simply not the case as long as we insist that the airwaves belong to the "public," and so the government should get to decide who gets to have a radio station. It means we'll be constantly subject to people like this guy trying to force viewpoints they don't like (like, for example, those that don't exalt the heterosexual family) out of the marketplace. It's a very dangerous situation. The only real problem that I have with the deregulation scheme currently being discussed is that it doesn’t do anything about the problem of the government monopoly over the airwaves. The way that deregulation works requires that anyone with the capital to do so can get into the game. Then, competition can weed out the bad ones and allow the good ones to thrive. That’s simply not the case as long as we insist that the airwaves belong to the “public,” and so the government should get to decide who gets to have a radio station. It means we’ll be constantly subject to people like this guy trying to force viewpoints they don’t like (like, for example, those that don’t exalt the heterosexual family) out of the marketplace. It’s a very dangerous situation.

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