On this day in engineering history, the Federal
Communications Commission (FCC) was created when U.S. President Franklin D.
Roosevelt signed the Communications Act of 1934. The FCC replaced the Federal
Radio Commission (FRC) and was authorized to regulate interstate telephone
service, formerly the province of the Interstate Commission Commission (ICC). Today,
the Federal Communications Commission is responsible for regulating interstate
and international communications by radio, television, wire, cable, and
satellite.
Radio and the Roaring
20s
From 1912 to 1927, radio broadcasting was regulated by the
United States Department of Commerce, a cabinet-level organization tasked with
promoting economic growth and technological competitiveness. Roosevelt's
presidential predecessor, Herbert Hoover, had served as U.S. Commerce Secretary
during the 1920s and played an important role in promoting radio. Secretary
Hoover's powers were limited, however, and the Commerce Secretary was not
allowed to deny broadcasting licenses. The resulting cacophony on the airwaves featured
too many stations on too few frequencies, a problem that frustrated both
broadcasters and listeners.
The Federal Radio
Commission
The Radio Act of 1927 remedied this situation by creating a
five-person Federal Radio Commission (FRC) with the power to grant and deny
licenses, and the ability to assign frequencies and power levels for each
license. By 1932, the FRC had licensed 625 radio broadcasting stations and some
30,000 amateur radio stations. The agency also shuttered some low-powered
stations, or allowed them to operate in the daytime on frequencies used by
commercial stations at night. Although the FRC's authority did not extend to
interstate telephony, its authority encompassed a new medium – television. In
1928, Charles Jenkins Laboratories became the first holder of an U.S. television
license.
Radio and Roosevelt
In the winter of 1934, President Hoover's successor –
Franklin D. Roosevelt – sent a message to Congress requesting the creation of a
new government agency, the Federal Communication Commission (FCC). In arguing
for the creation of "a single Government agency charged with broad authority,"
FDR placed telecommunications alongside power and transportation as "three
fields" in which the federal government must have a clear and effective
relationship to "certain services known as utilities". For the New Dealer, "the
services affected" by the FCC would be "all of those which rely on wires,
cables, or radio as a medium of transmission.
Ultimately, the Communications Act of 1934 reflected Roosevelt's regulatory vision and re-defined the federal government's relationship to radio and television broadcasting. Despite significant social and technological changes in subsequent decades, the legislation went largely unmodified until the Telecommunications Act of 1996.
Resources:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Communications_Act_of_1934
http://newdeal.feri.org/timeline/1934g2.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federal_Communications_Commission
http://www.fcc.gov/
http://www.museum.tv/archives/etv/U/htmlU/uspolicyc/uspolicyc.htm
http://www.fcc.gov/Reports/1934new.pdf
| 
