Variety radio directory (1939)

FEDERAL RADIO REGULATION— Continued school of thought had found expression in a minority opinion by one member of the Commission, in speeches and statements by prominent members of Congress, and in a bill introduced to require a complete divorce of newspaper and broadcast station ownership. With the appointment of Mr. McNinch as Chairman in 1937 there were unmistakeable indications that newspaper ownership would be considered a major issue. In his first press conference, he stated that he regarded it as "one of the important policy problems to be thought through and either determined by the Commission or presented to Congress with recommendations, if any, as the Commission may see fit to make." In the meantime, resolutions introduced in Congress in 1938, and again in 1939, for investigation of the Commission regularly specified newspaper ownership as a subject of inquiry. For a period of a year or more, while no application was denied solely and expressly because the applicant was identied with a newspaper, a number of applications by newspaper publishers met adverse decisions on other grounds. By the end of March, 1938, as appears from last year's article,* it seemed that there had been sufficiently definite pronouncements by both the Commission and the Court of Appeals and that henceforth it was unlikely that newspaper publishers would be at a disadvantage. In addition, the Report on Social and Economic Data submitted to the Commission by its Engineering Department on July 1, 1937, and made public January 24, 1938, contained a sensible discussion of the subject, which was elaborated in Part I of the Report of the Committee on Proposed Rules, made public January 18, 1939. The issue, however, still persisted into the year 1938-1939. In a report submitted early in November, 1938, an examiner recommended denial of an application involving transfer of control of a station to a newspaper concern already owning 49% of the licensee's stock, saying that a grant would give that concern "all the means of disseminating news or other information in the area and complete control of all advertising media available in the area. * * * In view of these facts, it appears that this would tend to restrict competition in the dissemination of news and information, and in advertising." During oral argument on this case on May 11, 1939, Commissioner Thompson, newly appointed to the Commission in April, gave indications by his questions that he viewed the situation as a prospective monopoly. The matter of newspaper ownership was commonly regarded as one of the focal issues in the background of the President's move on January 23, 1939, for reorganization of the Commission and amendment of the Act, and was specifically mentioned by him at his press conference the next day. Nevertheless, in a number of cases, with Commissioners McNinch and Walker dissenting in certain of them, the Commission approved the acquisition of stations by publishers, frequently and to an increasing extent without hearing. A curious twist to the newspaper question arose in Part II of the committee's report on rules and regulations, released June 7. In stating reasons for refusing to authorize power in excess of 50 kw., and in pointing to "certain policies" in the argument in behalf of the higher power, the * Variety Radio Directory, II, pp. 535-6. 933