‘Vast Wasteland’ Speech Turns 50, With Some Skeptical of Speech’s Import

"The core issues have remained the same” in the last 50 years, Genachowski said. Now the Internet and cellphones provide “extraordinary opportunities” for consumers, and also carry “dangers” like distracted driving, online piracy and keeping kids safe, Genachowski added: He tries “to be realistic about the downsides and the dangers” and to address them. Minow’s speech was “the single best use of the bully pulpit,” within telecom at least, Genachowski told the event organized by the George Washington University. A replay from C-SPAN is at http://xrl.us/bkhrdo.

Genachowski used the “wasteland” speech to make a case to reallocate frequencies occupied by TV stations for wireless broadband, something that broadcasters worry won’t be voluntary because they may have to change channels even if they don’t take part in an incentive auction. “The world has come to recognize what Newt spoke about in 1961, which is the incredible value of the scarce resource” of spectrum, Genachowski said. “We have a challenge now of making sure this public resource is being used in a way that maximizes” the public interest, he added.

New York is a market that shows not all TV stations fully serve their audience, Genachowski indicated. Of what he said were the 26 full-power TV stations there, there are “some providing incredible public service ... but it’s a small fraction of the stations in New York that are doing it.” And “for most people the TV that’s watched is through cable and satellite,” he said. Local TV news “is consistently rated by the vast majority of Americans as their No. 1 source for news,” NAB spokesman Zamir Ahmed wrote on the association’s blog. He urged a rejection of “policies that sacrifice the promises of the DTV age."

At least 11 New York TV stations have news directors, according to the Television and Cable Factbook, which counts 16 commercial stations in the market. It’s published by Warren Communications News, publisher of Communications Daily. Hofstra University Professor Bob Papper, who does TV news surveys for the Radio Television Digital News Association, agreed with our count and noted that PBS affiliate WNET also has said it plans to start doing local news. WNET New York and WLIW Garden City do “produce a lot of news,” President Pat Butler of the Association of Public TV Stations said. The market has 28 multicast digital signals, Ahmed said.

New York-area viewers are well served by broadcasters, since about half of the market’s TV stations originate local news, NAB President Gordon Smith said. Stations “produce what the public wants,” and the programming continues to be more popular than other media, he said. “The choices that people have on television today are so vast that consumer choice has never been so robust as it is today.” The FCC seems “to be very worried about broadcasting,” but Genachowski’s plan would have the regulator re-allot TV frequencies to be used for mobile broadband, where indecency rules don’t apply, Smith said. “Fifty years ago there were only three broadcast networks,” said a spokesman for News Corp.’s Fox Networks. “That Fox exists and thrives along with hundreds of cable and Internet outlets speaks to the vastly increased diversity of voices in the marketplace.” Other broadcast networks had no comment.

Genachowski and Minow also expressed hope that public broadcasters will get the money they need, as some Republican members of Congress seek to stop the federal government from funding those stations. “When commercial television does a series like the Civil War” or airs shows like Sesame Street or the News Hour, “then I will listen to that counter argument,” Minow said of defunding efforts. “Every other country has a public broadcasting system,” many funded by taxes or other government fees, he later noted. “If they weren’t doing it, who else would be doing it?” Genachowski said of public broadcasting’s shows. “What you hear from people in the communities on a bipartisan basis is that the stations have value,” he added.

The quality and breadth of shows on both public and commercial TV has improved markedly in the past five decades, said industry officials and Minow. He called himself a “television junkie,” and said “no matter what your interest is, today you can find a channel.” An op-ed by Minow in The Chicago Tribune, where he praised TV today, is at http://xrl.us/bkhrh6. Butler said that “on a regular basis now, both commercial and public broadcasting are providing a great deal of quality.” Not so for commercial stations, said former FCC Chairman Reed Hundt, Genachowski’s boss in the 1990’s. If broadcasting in 1961 was a wasteland, “it is a neutron-bomb land now,” Hundt said Tuesday. “Now, more than ever, the commercial television business is just a shadow of its former wasteland self. And what we need is a revitalization of our commitment to public broadcasting.” Smith said he “couldn’t disagree more” with Hundt: Americans “are drawn to broadcast content."

Other former FCC members said TV’s quality is high, and some raised concerns about government encroachment on the First Amendment rights of broadcasters when the FCC talks about the quality of programming. Genachowski and Minow’s “quarrel is really about a lack of ‘good’ programming,” said Mark Fowler, who ran the FCC under President Ronald Reagan. “How does their approach square with the clear language of the First Amendment?” No FCC chairman, including Minow, should be “in the bully pulpit business,” said Glen Robinson, a Democratic commissioner in the 1970s. “If FCC chairmen or commissioners want to try to regulate content, they should seek specific rules doing so,” he said. “Mostly they don’t because for both constitutional and practical political reasons they can’t get away with it -- which explains the ever-popular resort to the jawbone method.”