Radio broadcast .. (1922-30)

Record Details:

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The Former Counsel of the Commission Discusses the Advantages and Shortcomings of Our Present Form of Radio Regulation as They Appear From Experiences of the Past Three Years. to virtually every appointment made to the Commission, it must be conceded that the average quality of the appointments has been very high, in fact surprisingly so in view of the unattractive prospects and the uncertainty of tenure which go with such an appointment. Defects in Administration The foregoing should not be taken as indicating the writer's belief that defects have not developed in the form of regula- tion provided by the Radio Act of 1927. Serious defects have developed, both in the provisions of the law itself and in the ad- ministration of that law. Except as to a very few controversial matters, however, (such as the zone system, the Davis Amendment and the anti-monopoly and anti-merger provisions of the statute), there is remarkably little difference of opinion as to what the defects are or as to the manner in which they should be cor- rected. The industry generally can be of service in informing itself of the nature of the necessary changes and in supporting the recommendations so far as it finds it- self in agreement with them. Already bills are in course of preparation which follow a large proportion of the recommendations of informed persons on noncontroversial matters. With respect to the fundamental ques- tion of the form of regulation, it must be remembered that the issue is not one purely between a single executive officer on the one hand and a commission on the other. If the Radio Act of 1927 had been allowed to take its course, there would still have been a commission to which virtually every controverted matter would have been referred or appealed almost automa- tically; Section 5 of the Act gave the Commission plenary power (subject to review by the Court of Appeals) to reverse or revise "any decision, determination, or regulation of the Secretary of Com- merce." In the years immediately preced- ing the enactment of the Radio Act of 1927 there was no bill pending which con- templated lodging regulation solely in the Secretary of Commerce; the most that was urged in this direction was what would have been the situation to-day if the original powers of the Commission had not been extended from time to time by Congress. Needed Amendments Space will not permit discussion of necessary amendments to the Radio Act which do not have some relation to the nature of the licensing authority. No dis- cussion will be entered into, therefore, of the Davis Amendment, the inadequate procedural provisions with respect to hearings before the Commission and ap- peals, the undue rigidity imposed by the cumbersome provisions as to construction permits, licenses, and renewals of license, the unnecessarily drastic restrictions on the issuance of licenses to corporations with alien stockholders, officers, or direc- tors, the anti-monopoly and anti-merger provisions, and the penal provisions. Leaving these aside, let us inquire into what defects have developed that have more or less direct bearing on the nature of the licensing authority. In the first place, the present form of regulation has proved defective in not giving the Commission any latitude in delegating purely administrative matters to a subordinate officer. As matters now stand, the Commission must go through the form of making a finding and a formal entry in its minutes before any license, renewal of h'cense, or modification of li- cense can be issued. This is a tremendous and unnecessary burden with respect to such matters as amateur, ship, and air- plane licenses and, in the great majority of cases, with respect to renewals of license of any character. A single executive officer can unquestionably perform such duties more efficiently than a commission. If the law were amended so as to permit the Commission to delegate such purely ad- ministrative and routine matters to a subordinate (e. g., its secretary or a "Director of Radio"), the Commission to reserve to itself a decision on any contro- verted matter, the situation would not be very different from that originally pro- vided by the Radio Act of 1927 and the law could be made to work even more efficiently than under the ambiguous and almost unintelligible provisions of Section 5 of that Act. Lack of Stability A second defect has been the lack of stability in the Commission manifested in an inconsistency of decisions, in its tardiness in arriving at definite policies in accord- ance with engineering principles in the broadcast band, and in the amount of political pressure which is constantly exer- cised upon it. It is significant that after nearly three years of existence, it has not yet adopted any rules and regulations other than a rather heterogeneous lot of "General Orders"; that it has established no standards on such comparatively ele- mentary matters as the proper geographi- cal separation between broadcasting sta- tions of a given power on regional and local channels, or as between stations given daylight assignments on any chan- nels (including cleared channels); that it still refrains from adopting and announc- ing definite policies with respect to the desirability of cleared channels and the use of high power; that it called an engi- neering conference for January 17, 1930, to obtain the views of engineers on such questions as synchronization and antenna construction; that it has not yet come to any conclusion as to whether the alleged unnecessary "duplication" of chain pro- grams really exists; that, with the excep- tion of the unsuccessful venture made in the summer of 1928 to eliminate stations, it has done virtually nothing to decrease what every one concedes to be an exces- sive number of stations and, on the con- trary, has made the situation worse by allowing many stations of the regional Harold A. la Fount Judge Ira E. Robinson William D. L. Starbuck Maj. Gen. C. Mck, Saliaman • RADIO BROADCAST FOR MARCH • • 271