Broadcasting Telecasting (Apr - Jun 1952)

"flexibility" channels, particularly insofar as education is concerned, is therefore completely inconsistent with the fundamental principles followed by it with respect to channels 2 through 65. To be consistent and equitable, the Commission must establish a firm principle under which education woidd have a preference in "flexibility" channels equivalent to its reservations in the other channels. This preference could be accomplished by a rule of "limited eligibility," such as spelled out hereinbefore for smaller communities without television assignments. (Part B of this Opinion). In other words, I would retain the proposal concerning "flexibility" channels contained in the Third Notice and extend it to include cities without educational assignments, instead of almost completely deleting that proposal as the Commission has done in this Report. f. Eligibility for the licensing of non-commercial stations has been unduly limited, I believe that municipalities should be made eligible in every instance to operate stations on reserved non-commercial channels. To limit eligibility in general to educational institutions is, in my opinion, unnecessarily strict, for in many instances it may prevent the most efficient administration of the licensed channel and may even result in the complete loss of an otherwise ready and valuable licensee. In providing for this new and unique educational service, the Commission should not be unduly restrictive of its future development. Television is so much more costly than aural broadcasting and involves such substantial differences in organization and operation, that practices followed in FM should not necessarily be binding here. As the city usually holds authority over the public school system, it is not only incongruous but it contradicts the basic principle of licensee* responsibility to provide that its subordinate entity is eligible for license while the city itself is not. Moreover, in many instances the municipality could more efficiently operate the station, particularly so when it has jurisdiction over the many and varied educational and cultural institutions in the city. It is clear that every licensee of a reserved channel will be required to broadcast exclusively on a noncommercial basis, featuring specialized educational and cultural programming, and will be bound by the general requirements for cooperative arrangements among all educational institutions in the area. In view of these careful limitations as to the nature and scope of educational-TV operations, I can see no reason why the Commission's Rules should in any case prevent a municipality which is ready, able and otherwise qualified to build and operate a station, while the area's educators are not, from bringing this vitally needed service to the public. * IX Had the Commission adopted and applied the general principles set forth above, adequate provision for education would have been x The Commission has recognized this need to some extent by providing for municipality eligibility in certain limited instances. (See Pars. 50-3 of the Sixth Report and Section 3.621 (c) of the TV Rules) . achieved. Since it did not, however, and for the further reasons enumerated below in particular cases, I find it necessary in several instances to dissent from the Commission's final Table of Assignments. My objections to specific assignments may be grouped in the following categories: a. Proposed VHF reservations have been deleted. (Pars. 431, 588, 611 and 586) In Indianapolis (Indiana), Kansas City (Missouri) and Omaha (Nebraska), the Commission has improperly deleted proposed VHF reservations and substituted UHF reservations in their place. In Columbia (Missouri), a proposed VHF reservation for a "primarily educational center" has been deleted without any substitute reservation provided. 25 I believe, however, that the VHF reservation should have been retained and finalized in every one of these cities. These deletions have been based upon the lack of local educational demand for VHF reservations and commercial opposition to them. The basic fallacy of a policy predicated upon demand has already been pointed out and is fully applicable here. Reservations, it should be remembered, are primarily set aside for the benefit of the people who will be served by these non-commercial stations. A reserved channel therefore confers no interest which local educators can refuse, barter or sell. The only right an educator has in a reserved channel is one of use and service, subject to Commission approval and its Rules and Regulations. If he is unwilling to exercise this right, no matter his position or influence, the VHF channel should remain reserved in that community for the use of its more enlightened and public spirited citizens and educators. The public interest should not here be neglected solely because educators now in office refuse to accept or recognize television's opportunity and challenge. Not only may changes in administration bring about a change in the thinking of their institutions, but the passage of time and the example set by other educators using TV, may bring about radical revision even in their own attitudes. They may then be quick, if the channel is gone, to demand its return and cry that the Commission should have guarded them against their own error. We have seen such a cycle in radio and must insure against its repetition in television. The Commission must not adopt the shortsightedness of a few as its own basic policy. It should be noted here with a Another deletion of a VHF reservation, in effect, was made in San Diego (California) where the Commission's Third Notice had proposed to reserve VHF channel 3, and strong support for such a reservation had been received from local educators. Subsequently, due to an agreement with Mexico respecting border allocations, the Commission deleted one VHF of the three a=signed to San Diego, that one being VHF channel 3 reserved for education. Since no other VHF has been reserved in San Diego, it is clear that education there has been forced to bear a disproportionate cost of this international agreement. Storrs (Connecticut) is a substantially different matter, for there the proposed UHF reservation was shifted to another Connecticut city in order to provide a more efficient system of reservations for a state-wide educational service. (Par. 283 of the Sixth Report). regard to all allocations that the contest for assignments is now largely confined to the VHF frequencies, and particularly to those cities in which VHF stations are already on the air. Thus, of the 73 cities in the United States in which the Commission had proposed VHF educational assignments, commercial interests in 22 of these cities have objected to the reservations and requested that they be deleted. In fully half of the 26 instances in which a VHF reservation was proposed for cities with presently operating stations, commercial objections were received to such reservations. Yet, at the same time, there was not a single commercial objection seeking to delete specifically proposed UHF reservations, although a total of 127 had been proposed by the Commission. 27 Without doubt, however, a tight situation such as exists where VHF is now operating is only being delayed in the remainder of the VHF and in the entire UHF, and will develop there with increasing intensity as available TV assignments are taken up. To insure the full and unrestricted opportunity in television that education needs and deserves, the Commission must now stand firm against the immediate claims of commercial expediency seeking deletions from those few VHF channels which have been reserved. b. Additional VHF and UHF assignments have been provided without being reserved for educational purposes. 1. In its Third Notice the Commission set forth the principles for determining allocations to education, which provided in part for a reservation in every city with three or more assignments and a VHF reservation in cities with at least three VHF assignments of which one was still available. The Third Notice scrupulously followed these principles in proposing its assignments and reservations. Yet, in several instances herein the Commission has provided a number of additional assignments which these principles would require to be reserved for education, but in every instance save one the Commission has deviated from the principle, failed to make such reservation and, instead, has assigned the channel for commercial use.28 It has done so solely on the basis that no educational demand has been manifested for such reservation. This is the case in Youngstown (Ohio) ; Scranton, Altoona and Harrisburg (Pennsylvania) ; Santa Barbara (California), and Bellingham (Washington) where third assignments have been provided, and in Lubbock (Texas) and Buffalo-Niagara Falls (New York) where third VHF's have been assigned, the latter by virtue of the combination for assignment pur lin Madison (Wisconsin), it should be noted, a commercial request to move the proposed reservation from the UHF to VHF was denied expressly on the basis that no educational demand for the VHF supported this request. (See Par. 581 of the Sixth Report.) 28 Only in Sacramento (California), where the Commission has reserved the third VHF assigned to that city have the principles of the Third Notice been followed; even here such assignment was not due alone to those principles, but as much, if not more, to the local educators" demand for the VHF reservations. poses of those two cities into one metropolitan area. The Commission has failed to give any reason why the general pre-established rules respecting educational allocations should not be applied to these additional assignments. How can the Commission consistently distinguish those instances where a city received its assignments under the Third Notice from those where that third assignment, or that third VHF, came to it as the result of the city-by-city hearings? Furthermore, in only a single one of these instances (Buffalo) did the commercial interests requesting the additional assignment refer to or deal with the question of whether this assignment, if made, should be reserved for education as required by the principles of the Third Notice or should be made available to commercial interests. Therefore, in order to achieve a consistent application of these aforementioned principles, the Commission should reserve every third assignment and third VHF, above specified, for educational purposes. 2. Similarly the Commission has allocated a first or second VHF channel to several cities, but in no case has this VHF been assigned for educational purposes, although there was clear need for such action and the educators affected have strongly articulated their support of educational assignments. Thus, in Hartford (Connecticut), the added VHF assignment, if reserved, could immediately serve as the hub of a contemplated state-wide educational network. In Bay City (Michigan) where local educators made a strong showing for a VHF channel, the Commission disregarded it despite the fact that an additional VHF was assismed to that city. Although that VHF was not the exact one requested by Bay City's educators, it should be noted that the Commission did not find such circumstance to be an obstacle, when, on its own motion, it allocated VHF 10 to Altoona (Pennsylvania) although commercial interests there had demanded the assignment of a completely different VHF channel. 29 This example illustrates the pattern of Commission inconsistency; it deviates (in Youngstown, Lubbock, etc.) from principles requiring reservations on the basis that no educational demand has been manifested, and yet in Bay City it adheres to principles restricting reservations even in the face of clear demand for such assignments. While it is true that the general principles of the Third Notice do not require these additional VHF's to be reserved, I believe that ordinary fairness at least requires consistent Commission action in like situations, whether commercial or educational. In these above-mentioned instances, the entire record so well supports education's need for the VHF channels involved that they should be set aside in every one of these cities. c. VHF reservations requested for early educational operations have not been provided. The Commission must not only reserve channels for education but 29 Par. 370 of the Sixth Report, Page 170 • April 14, 1952 Part II Final TV Report BROADCASTING • Telecasting