When was the fcc started

NewYork: Oxford University Press, Hobson, eds. Silver Springs,Md. Zarkin, Kimberly A. Skorup, Brent. Breland, Ali. Sergi, Joe. Brian Caterino. Federal Communications Commission [electronic resource]. Other articles in Governmental Entities and Activities.

Want to support the Free Speech Center? Donate Now. Fox Federal Communications Commission v. Bagdikian, Ben H. The New Media Monopoly. Boston: Beacon Press, Kellner, Douglas. Television and the Crisis of Democracy.

Boulder, Colo. The FCC's broad grant of authority, combined with its impenetrable complexity, means that it has nearly boundless ability to distribute favors and shape the trillion-dollar technology and media industries. The FCC's tendencies, in the words of economist and judge Richard Posner, result in "unprincipled compromises of Rube Goldberg complexity among contending interest groups viewed merely as clamoring suppliants who have somehow to be conciliated.

The FCC tentatively encouraged that costly process for a few years before rescinding crucial permissions under intense political pressure.

The bureaucratic shift immediately bankrupted LightSquared and deprived Americans of the benefits of another major wireless operator. The opacity of the FCC has become even more problematic since, at the urging of President Obama, the nominally independent agency has voted itself unprecedented authority to regulate the internet in the name of so-called "net neutrality.

And the agency's recent actions again threaten the First Amendment rights of new media, such as online portals and search engines. The FCC's ad hoc enforcement of legacy regulations has done untold damage to consumer interests for decades, and the agency's new claim of authority to regulate broadband much like the old Bell telephone monopoly is the culmination of its missteps. We need to rethink the necessity of both the agency's economic and noneconomic responsibilities.

In this era of growing competition, technological change, and content abundance, Congress needs to pave a path toward not only limiting the agency's power over the internet but eliminating most FCC authority outright.

According to Randy May, who formerly served as associate general counsel at the FCC, there are nearly statutory provisions that direct or authorize the FCC to act based on its understanding of the "public interest. This standard is so broad and all-encompassing that it shields the agency from legal accountability: While Congress does give the FCC more specific directives, the agency can always point to the pervasive public-interest standard, ensuring that court review will remain limited.

The public-interest standard was first applied to mass media over 90 years ago. In the early s, radio broadcasting took the world by storm. For the first time, millions of people could simultaneously enjoy a variety of widely disseminated information, like election results, live coverage of baseball games, and music. There was no regulatory body overseeing radio yet, and under existing law broadcasters had simply to register their use of the airwaves in a particular geographic location with the secretary of commerce, an ambitious man named Herbert Hoover.

In , however, the acting Attorney General, William Donovan, abruptly declared that registration system untenable. Congress authorized the new FRC to operate for "the public interest, convenience, or necessity," but the agency's origin shows that it had quite different objectives from the very beginning.

Clemson University economist Thomas Hazlett argues that the creation of a radio agency with the authority to license mass media satisfied two powerful interest groups. First, an agency with broad discretion satisfied regulators and the political class, who could now "guide" a powerful new medium.

Second, the agency found support from the major players in the radio industry, who could afford to placate regulators with public-interest obligations in return for protection from economic rivals. It is a mistake to assume the congressmen who promulgated this vague standard in the s thought that it had any true significance. Contemporaries knew the agency had few legal restraints.

Louis Caldwell, the first general counsel of the FRC, described the standard in as akin to instructing a radio czar to "do the best he can.

It reflected the Progressive Era beliefs that laissez faire was unfair, wasteful, and chaotic, and that technocrats needed freedom to organize complex economic systems efficiently and extract obligations from the regulated industries. While the standard was open-ended, the creators of the new FRC did not expect the agency to have unlimited power.

Where regulators overreach, courts can and do cabin their discretion. Donovan noted that the FRC's public-interest standard "has to be marked out and developed by a line of administrative and judicial decisions. Section 1 of the Sherman Antitrust Act, for instance, bars "contract[s] Rather than empower the antitrust agencies with that immense discretion, courts applied something like common-law standards to the statute to prevent the exercise of arbitrary power.

Despite the passage of decades, however, neither the FRC which became the FCC in nor the courts have put meaningful limits on what the agency can do under the nebulous public-interest standard. It is this tremendous discretion that leaves communications law so full of kludges.

Over the history of the FCC, its officials have stumbled from one agency-created regulatory crisis to another, and the standardless vacuum has invited an easily manipulated, politicized, and arbitrary process. Reflecting its New Deal-era origins, the FCC seeks to regulate a fairly static competitive landscape to ensure the orderly deployment of wire and wireless services according to its own standards and categories.

The FCC has a technology-specific, compartmentalized doctrine for each area it regulates, including telephone, over-the-air broadcasting, cable, direct broadcasting satellite, and interactive computer services.

The regulatory rigidity that results from this compartmental approach slows or halts competition and innovation, and whole industries are stymied as the agency tries to maintain artificial distinctions and protect established practices from competitive upheaval.

This competitive upheaval is what Joseph Schumpeter termed "creative destruction," and even though it is the origin of tremendous innovation and numerous consumer benefits, it is anathema to an industry-specific agency like the FCC. As former FCC commissioner Glen Robinson has noted, the FCC has consistently concluded that the best way to eliminate the risk of "unfair competition" is to eliminate competition altogether.

One of the best examples of the FCC's opposition to competition that undermines its regulatory silos was the FCC's cozy but counterproductive relationship with the Bell telephone monopoly. Major technological innovations were delayed for decades in part because Bell was protected by the FCC from normal competitive pressures. Television over a telephone wire, largely prohibited by law until the mids, was developed in The first mobile telephone service, linking moving cars, debuted in The FCC had several hearings about subscription TV throughout the s and allowed only a few local experiments.

But these innovations were stifled by a slow-moving bureaucracy, and the result was a monopoly that served the public interest only incidentally.

It was the FCC's perceived inability to effectively regulate Bell and its subsidiaries that led to the forced breakup of the monopoly in the s and s. Personal Finance.

Your Practice. Popular Courses. Table of Contents Expand. What Is the FCC? Understanding the FCC. FCC Regulations. FCC Approvals. The Bottom Line. The FCC oversees all interstate and international communications. It also maintains standards and consistency among media types and communication methods while protecting the interests of consumers and businesses.

The FCC is headed by a chair, who is one of five commissioners appointed by the President. Article Sources. Investopedia requires writers to use primary sources to support their work.

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Investopedia does not include all offers available in the marketplace. Net Neutrality Net neutrality is the concept that all Internet traffic should be treated equally by Internet service providers. Read the pros and cons of net neutrality. Administrative Law Definition Administrative law is the body of law that governs the regulation of government agencies at federal and state levels. House of Representatives. Partner Links. The commissioners hold regular open and closed agenda meetings and special meetings.

They also may act between meetings by "circulation," a procedure by which a document is submitted to each commissioner individually for consideration and official action. The Commission staff is organized by function. There are six operating Bureaus and 10 Staff Offices.