4 ms·

Didn't used to be this way, the FCC used to be much more serious about treating public airways as the public resource that they are.

thephyber 6y ago
Yes. Some background[1] on the change. [1] https://www.brookings.edu/research/revisiting-the-broadcast-public-interest-standard-in-communications-law-and-regulation/ https://www.brookings.edu/research/revisiting-the-broadcast-...
AnthonyMouse 6y ago
It used to be "broadcast" was really broadcast over limited public airwaves. Now it's all IPTV and streams and there is no practical limit on the amount of content that can be distributed, which was always the justification for regulating it. The real problem now is nobody wants to pay for anything when the competition is free. "You're not the customer, you're the product" doesn't only apply to Google.
- ac29 6y ago
  100% percent of the stations listed in the article have broadcast over the air stations (their FCC callsigns are given). I couldn't speculate how many people consume these station's content via broadcast versus some other medium, though. I wouldn't be too surprised if it was more than a few years ago, but definitely significantly less than 20+ years ago. As as aside, as someone who works in the regulated radio industry, I actually wish there was more enforcement of FCC rules. As is, they are mainly a regulatory body, not an enforcement one - its extremely unlikely you will receive the FCC's attention for operating without a license or breaking other rules. But, please dont do these things, its easy and inexpensive to get amateur/personal/business licenses and you risk interfering with public safety or other critical users of the radio spectrum. Here's a list of enforcement actions for rule violations and unlicensed operation: https://transition.fcc.gov/eb/FieldNotices/ https://transition.fcc.gov/eb/FieldNotices/
  - AnthonyMouse 6y ago
    > 100% percent of the stations listed in the article have broadcast over the air stations (their FCC callsigns are given). I couldn't speculate how many people consume these station's content via broadcast versus some other medium, though. Even the percentage doesn't really matter because the scarcity isn't there anymore. You don't have to get on broadcast TV in order to reach an audience anymore. PewDiePie has more subscribers than Fox and NBC have viewers combined. When broadcast TV was the only way to deliver video to millions of people, you had to care what was using that capacity because it came at the expense of carrying something else. Now it's just one more way to deliver bits. If anything it's now YouTube in that position, because they're just about the only way for ordinary people to reach a large audience. But in that case the constraint still isn't that they're carrying something bad instead of something good, since everything is carried in addition to rather than instead of everything else, but rather that they might refuse to carry something good which then has no other reasonable alternative for distribution.

thephyber 6y ago

Yes. Some background[1] on the change. [1] https://www.brookings.edu/research/revisiting-the-broadcast-public-interest-standard-in-communications-law-and-regulation/ https://www.brookings.edu/research/revisiting-the-broadcast-...

AnthonyMouse 6y ago

It used to be "broadcast" was really broadcast over limited public airwaves. Now it's all IPTV and streams and there is no practical limit on the amount of content that can be distributed, which was always the justification for regulating it. The real problem now is nobody wants to pay for anything when the competition is free. "You're not the customer, you're the product" doesn't only apply to Google.

ac29 6y ago
100% percent of the stations listed in the article have broadcast over the air stations (their FCC callsigns are given). I couldn't speculate how many people consume these station's content via broadcast versus some other medium, though. I wouldn't be too surprised if it was more than a few years ago, but definitely significantly less than 20+ years ago. As as aside, as someone who works in the regulated radio industry, I actually wish there was more enforcement of FCC rules. As is, they are mainly a regulatory body, not an enforcement one - its extremely unlikely you will receive the FCC's attention for operating without a license or breaking other rules. But, please dont do these things, its easy and inexpensive to get amateur/personal/business licenses and you risk interfering with public safety or other critical users of the radio spectrum. Here's a list of enforcement actions for rule violations and unlicensed operation: https://transition.fcc.gov/eb/FieldNotices/ https://transition.fcc.gov/eb/FieldNotices/
- AnthonyMouse 6y ago
  > 100% percent of the stations listed in the article have broadcast over the air stations (their FCC callsigns are given). I couldn't speculate how many people consume these station's content via broadcast versus some other medium, though. Even the percentage doesn't really matter because the scarcity isn't there anymore. You don't have to get on broadcast TV in order to reach an audience anymore. PewDiePie has more subscribers than Fox and NBC have viewers combined. When broadcast TV was the only way to deliver video to millions of people, you had to care what was using that capacity because it came at the expense of carrying something else. Now it's just one more way to deliver bits. If anything it's now YouTube in that position, because they're just about the only way for ordinary people to reach a large audience. But in that case the constraint still isn't that they're carrying something bad instead of something good, since everything is carried in addition to rather than instead of everything else, but rather that they might refuse to carry something good which then has no other reasonable alternative for distribution.