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August 4, 1987…FCC Rescinds Fairness Doctrine

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Eyes Of A Generation.com

August 4, 1987…FCC Rescinds Fairness Doctrine

My Thoughts On The State Of Broadcasting Today…An Editorial

I don’t often climb on my soapbox, but today…I’m going to. I’ve wanted to write about the condition of broadcasting for a while and with this historically significant date at hand, now seems to be as good a time as any.

Like it or not, we can thank the republicans for much of the carnage in radio and television. Ironically, it was the administration of ‘The Great Communicator”, Ronald Reagan that proved once again that the road to hell is paved with good intentions.

The fun began when Reagan appointed Mark Fowler as head of the FCC in 1980. Fowler was a communications lawyer, but worked with the Reagan For President Committees in 1976 and 1980. He was a big supporter of deregulation, as much of the Reagan clan was.

Under Fowler, the number of television stations any single entity could own grew from seven in 1981 to 12 in 1985. In 1985, and guidelines for minimal amounts of non-entertainment programming are abolished and FCC guidelines on how much advertising can be carried per hour are eliminated. Before this the rule was 8 minutes per hour…today, it’s around 18.

Soon after he became FCC Chairman under President Reagan, Michael Fowler stated his desire to do away with the Fairness Doctrine and on this day in 1987, the “Fairness Doctrine” was eliminated. At its founding the FCC viewed the stations, to which it granted licenses, as “public trustee” and required that they made every reasonable attempt to cover contrasting points of views and present balanced coverage of controversial issues. This was the last time the news in America was actually “fair and balanced”. Sound familiar?

The number of big media companies in the US was already shrinking from around 80 in 1960 to around 50 in 1990, but there was more to come. By the way, if Murdoch’s News Corp is allowed to buy Time Warner, we will go from 6 big television companies to 5.

The biggest mistake ever made in US broadcast history was when President Clinton signed the Telecommunications Act of 1996. The bill was written by South Dakota’s Republican Senator Larry Pressler.

At the time, the 104th Congress was controlled by the republicans and Newt Gingrich was in charge. They shut down the government twice, passed bills like the Defense Of Marriage Act and could pass just about anything they wanted as they controlled both the House and Senate.

This 1996 law is generally regarded as one of the most important pieces of legislation regulating media ownership ever written. Under this, the radio industry experienced unprecedented consolidation after the 40-station ownership cap is lifted. Clear Channel Communications owns 1200 stations, in all 50 states reaching more than 110 million listeners every week. Television is not in any better shape.

With unlimited ownership and no fairness doctrine in place, Clear Channel took most of thier AM stations talk and gave the Rush Limbaugh’s of the world a stage like no one had ever seen.

I’ve been in radio and television for 50 years and have to admit that I have not listed to terrestrial radio since satellite radio became available about 15 years ago. That in itself is a pretty sad commentary on the state of media in the US. – Bobby Ellerbee

Aside from the facts, this is just my opinion and you may agree or disagree, but I remind you to keep your comments civil. Enjoy and share.

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25 responses to “August 4, 1987…FCC Rescinds Fairness Doctrine”

  1. Frank Gottlieb

    Since leaving broadcasting two years ago it is appalling to see how the quality of broadcast and cable continue to decline. I place the blame squarely on consolidation and the quest for eyes and ears. The original missions of so many broadcasters have been case aside.

  2. Joel Boyter

    It is hard to explain or relate this to students in college now. They are post deregulation.

  3. Brian Keane

    I just object to the classification of opinion, void of actual reporting, being called journalism or news. Rush Limbaugh is an entertainer who’s audience might have been in the KKK 60 years ago. He is not a journalist. He is a big fat opinionated, uninformed, drug addict, who depends on pathetic fools for an audience. Fox News is not a lot different.

    Lest you label me a “libtard”(though I proudly am), MSNBC is all opinion also, and CNN has become mostly that as well. The same talking heads, with the same views, and no hard reporting. News has become commercial entertainment. Instead of reporting what people should be informed about, news is slanted to what their audience wants to hear about.

    It used to be that networks lost money covering the news, but cared enough about informing the public that they accepted those losses as their service to an open democracy. Now, you can’t find a “news” show that is open to democracy in the US, except for the odd show like HBO’s Vice (which if you watch it, you can plainly see is genuine journalism). PBS, which is money starved, at least brings you footage from those few world media sources still reporting like the BBC, or Al Jazeera. Those news organizations are government funded but keep a remarkably unbiased perspective considering that (though they are clearly biased in many ways also). The old networks of CBS, NBC, and ABC, are clearly biased towards an American perspective, and I know first hand from working for them, that they are censored.

    In many ways, the internet has replaced the news, but the trustworthiness is as much or more suspect as television. At some level, you just have to take information using some amount of common sense. At least with the internet you can do a but more fact checking.

  4. Chuck Maye

    The DEATH of the Fairness Doctrine was the DEATH of the industry I loved & dedicated 45 years of my life to.

  5. Rob Kates

    Too much consolidation these days. TV and radio stations are homogeneous from coast to coast. The internet revolution has hurt TV, radio and newspapers significantly. The best in audio does not come from traditional radio, but from satellite and podcasts.

  6. Art Hackett

    A bigger mistake in my book was the repeal of the anti-trafficing rule. At one time an owner had to hold a license for three years prior to selling it. Once that was repealed stations were swapped like baseball cards driving prices way beyond what advertising revenue could ever support. Owners, deep in debt, responded by cutting staff, eliminating the product that drew their audience in an effort to keep the bankers satisfied. A true death spiral. That, combined with the repeal of the ownership limits, allowed operators like Clear Channel to think, “Hey, if I borrow enough money from Wall Street I can buy every station in the country, have a monopoly, and charge all the money in the world for my ads!” And as for for Ed Bukont’s comment about the “socialist divestiture” of the local bells, the former SBC has now recreated the national monopoly. So are you happy now?

  7. David Breneman

    *Somebody* enjoys listening to the Rush Limbaugh Show. If he wasn’t so popular, he wouldn’t be so popular. As far as the Fairness Doctrine goes, its enforcement was frequently capricious and arbitrary. It gave groups with political pull (usually on the left) the ability to shut up dissenting voices (usually on the right) by compelling stations to air hours of “balancing opinions” nobody would listen to. Meanwhile, Larry King was able to engage in all sorts of political pontificating without providing “equal time” except to frustrated and nervous listeners quickly dismissed with a sarcastic “Rest well, caller [click!!]”. With the Fairness Doctrine out of the way, the political Rodney Dangerfields finally had a chance to storm Ted Knight’s country club of the air, and the result is different. Is it worse? That depends on whether you’re Dangerfield or Knight. The important issue isn’t who’s political blather is in ascendancy (personally, I don’t care to listen to Limbaugh or any of the others – I prefer Julie Mason on The Press Pool on POTUS), it’s what’s happened to local broadcasting. The Internet is what happened to it. It’s no longer economically viable to run an independent, locally-programmed station in most markets. That’s not Ronald Reagan’s fault, and I have a sneaking suspicion that the answer to that problem does not lie in *more* regulation.

  8. Larry Wheeler

    Don’t forget that Telcom ’96 has paved the way further for radio markets, large and small, to take away “live and local” programming. Live On-Air Personalities being replaced with syndication, and “voice tracking”. National Playlists for the music stations, and AM radio being all but dead at this point, except in election cycles- revenue wise. Even the once mighty “Rush” is seeing a rapidly aging audience and declining revenues, nationwide. Where the consolidation really takes its toll is when small markets have a tornado roll through, and the radio station is still playing the hits, instead of the storm warnings.

  9. Sam Schrade

    Well stated. Everyone is entitled to their opinion. Despite government rules and changes we still have a freedom of the press that is important to every citizen. My only dislike is the lack of journalism being displayed.

  10. Eric Temple

    Amen Bobby. You said it all.

  11. James M Patterson

    You are absolutely correct! I disagree with the gentleman who said AM would have disappeared without Rush and big corporations. Local radio in a few isolated spots still serves and entertains well. And when there’s a weather emergency or other localized problem where should people turn? The internet? Deregulation was supposed to solve so many “problems.” Well, look at the air travel situation today. A few lines (and fewer every year) jam the airports with flights at non-competitive ticket prices. I studied broadcasting and worked in the business when it existed to serve the public interest. Now we have a handful of huge corporations filling their shareholders pockets while serving the public lowest common denominator programming. “American Ninja Warrior” – “Duck Dynasty” just to name a couple. Newton Minnow thought TV was a “vast wasteland” in the early 60’s. I bet he’s spinning in his grave today.

  12. Thomas Young

    Not only is the lack of “fairness” a problem in broadcasting, the lack of diversity in ownership is, also. Bring back limits on the number of stations an entity can own. Thanks for including this in your well written piece.

  13. Bryan Durr

    Great piece Bobby and something I wish ALL Americans were more aware of.

  14. Gary Walters

    I cannot add anything that you eloquently commented on Bobby.

  15. Andrew Palser

    Having retired after 38 years in TV broadcast technology I sadly think that I had the best of times. The technology requires less employees, the thousands of channels are mostly trash, and the internet has surely replaced the medium. But it was a great ride:)

  16. Michael Scott Ferguson

    Thanks for getting this said, Bobby. We had a more civil society in those days. Now: if only we could stop using media to serve those who pit American against American.

  17. Ed Bukont

    a lot of the damage in radio was also caused by the socialist inspired divestiture of AT&T’s local operating companies. Jimmy Carter knew how bad the law was, so he waited until Jan. 19th to sign it, thus putting the focus on Reagan. That law created the mess now before us in net neutrality and unfair competition from other wireless services.

  18. Ed Bukont

    had it not been for big companies and Rush Limbaugh AM would have gone away long ago.

  19. Joe Anderson

    Are we sure things were fair and balanced prior to deregulation?

  20. Michael Karman

    You hit every point in the bullseye! The grave has been dug…

  21. Adam Smook

    I agree.
    In 1979, I took a class at Ithaca College called Broadcast Regulation. We studied the history, and anticipated changes. We even went on a field trip to DC and met with legislator who endorsed the changes, and I remember thinking “How can this possibly be in the public interest?”

  22. James Stanley Barr

    If anything, Newton Minow’s “vast wasteland” has pretty much come true. Now, more than ever sadly. We have a glut of mindless media outlets. I’m preparing to join the millions who have “cut the cord” per se, because I’m tired of paying for 400 channels of garbage.

  23. Eric O’Brien

    It’s a sad state of affairs for sure.

  24. Jo Bussell

    I agree with every word. The Communications Act and Clear Channel as a result; the reason I am not working and can’t find work. When 1600 of us were laid off, it ended many a lifelong career.

  25. Albert J. McGilvray

    Excellent piece of writing, Bobby. Thank you.

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