Federal Radio Commission - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

The Federal Radio Commission (FRC) was a government body that regulated radio

Radio

Radio is the transmission of signals through free space by modulation of electromagnetic waves with frequencies below those of visible light. Electromagnetic radiation travels by means of oscillating electromagnetic fields that pass through the air and the vacuum of space...

use in the United States

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

from its creation in 1926 until its replacement by the Federal Communications Commission

Federal Communications Commission

The Federal Communications Commission is an independent agency of the United States government, created, Congressional statute , and with the majority of its commissioners appointed by the current President. The FCC works towards six goals in the areas of broadband, competition, the spectrum, the...

(FCC) in 1934. The Commission was created to regulate radio use "as the public convenience, interest, or necessity requires." The Radio Act of 1927 superseded the
Radio Act of 1912

Radio Act of 1912

The Radio Act of 1912 is a United States federal law that mandated that all radio stations in the US be licensed by the federal government, as well as mandating that seagoing vessels continuously monitor distress frequencies....

, which had given regulatory powers over
radio communication to the Secretary of Commerce and Labor. The Radio Act of 1912 did not mention
broadcasting and limited all private radio
communications to what is now the AM band.

The Dill White Bill

The Dill White Bill was proposed and sponsored by Senator Clarence Dill and W.H. White on December 21, 1926. Senator Dill and Representative White had several attempts at creating regulation laws prior to the Dill White Bill. However the Dill White Bill was the first bill actually considered by the Senate to start regulating the radio waves. The bill originally proposed that a committee of five members (one member representing each time zone) would given the power to regulate radio waves and licenses. The bill was officially brought to the Senate floor on January 28, 1927. After a month of debates the bill was finally passed as the Radio Act of 1927 on February 18, 1927 and signed into law by President Calvin Coolidge

Calvin Coolidge

John Calvin Coolidge, Jr. was the 30th President of the United States . A Republican lawyer from Vermont, Coolidge worked his way up the ladder of Massachusetts state politics, eventually becoming governor of that state...

on February 23, 1927 as Public Law 632.

The Radio Act of 1927

Prior to 1927, radio was regulated by the United States Department of Commerce

United States Department of Commerce

The United States Department of Commerce is the Cabinet department of the United States government concerned with promoting economic growth. It was originally created as the United States Department of Commerce and Labor on February 14, 1903...

. Commerce Secretary

United States Secretary of Commerce

The United States Secretary of Commerce is the head of the United States Department of Commerce concerned with business and industry; the Department states its mission to be "to foster, promote, and develop the foreign and domestic commerce"...

Herbert Hoover

Herbert Clark Hoover was the 31st President of the United States . Hoover was originally a professional mining engineer and author. As the United States Secretary of Commerce in the 1920s under Presidents Warren Harding and Calvin Coolidge, he promoted partnerships between government and business...

played a strong role in shaping radio. His powers were limited by federal court decisions, however; in particular, he was not allowed to deny broadcasting licenses to anyone who wanted one. The result was that many people perceived the airwaves to suffer from "chaos," with too many stations trying to be heard on too few frequencies. Others believed the government simply wanted to control content, which it ultimately did. (Initially only two frequencies were available for broadcasting with one of these being reserved for "Crop reports and weather forecasts.") After several failed attempts to rectify this situation, Congress finally passed the Radio Act of 1927, which transferred most of the responsibility for radio to a newly created Federal Radio Commission. (Some technical duties remained the responsibility of the Radio Division of the Department of Commerce.)

The five-person FRC was given the power to grant and deny licenses, and to assign frequencies and power levels for each licensee. The Commission was not given any official power of censorship, although programming could not include "obscene, indecent, or profane language." In theory, anything else could be aired. In practice, the Commission could take into consideration programming when renewing licenses, and their ability to take away a broadcaster's license obviously enabled them to control content to some degree.

The Commission also had little power over networks; in fact, the Radio Act of 1927 made almost no mention of the radio networks (notably NBC

NBC

The National Broadcasting Company is an American commercial broadcasting television network and former radio network headquartered in the GE Building in New York City's Rockefeller Center with additional major offices near Los Angeles and in Chicago...

and, a bit later CBS

CBS

CBS Broadcasting Inc. is a major US commercial broadcasting television network, which started as a radio network. The name is derived from the initials of the network's former name, Columbia Broadcasting System. The network is sometimes referred to as the "Eye Network" in reference to the shape of...

) that were in the process of dominating radio. The only mention of radio networks was vague: The Commission {the Federal Radio Commission} shall "Have the authority to make special regulations applicable to stations engaged in chain broadcasting."

The act did not authorize the Federal Radio Commission to make any rules regulating advertising. Advertising was mentioned in the act with only slightly more authority than networking; merely requiring advertisers to identify themselves:

"All matter broadcast by any radio station for which service, money, or any other valuable consideration is
directly paid, or promised to, or charged to, or accepted by, the station so broadcasting, from any person, firm, company, or corporation, shall at the time the same is so broadcast, be announced as paid for or furnished as the case may be, by such person, firm, company, or corporation."

A forerunner of the "equal-time rule

Equal-time rule

The equal-time rule specifies that U.S. radio and television broadcast stations must provide an equivalent opportunity to any opposing political candidates who request it...

" was stated in section (18) of the Radio Act of 1927 which ordered stations to give equal opportunities for political candidates. The act did vest in the Federal Radio Commission the power to revoke licenses and give fines for violations of the act.

The Radio Act of 1927 divided the country into five geographical zones. Each zone was represented by one of the five Commissioners. The 1928 reauthorization of the Radio Act included a provision, called the "Davis Amendment" after its sponsor Ewin L. Davis

Ewin L. Davis

Ewin Lamar Davis was an American politician and a member of the United States House of Representatives for the 5th congressional district of Tennessee.-Biography:...

, that required each zone to have equal allocations of licenses, time of operation, station power, and wavelength. This greatly complicated things for the Commissioners; they were required to deny station applications to otherwise qualified candidates simply because the new station would put a particular state or zone over its quota. For example, the northeast had a greater population than the
southwest, but was limited to the same number of stations as more sparsely populated areas. Likewise, many small communities in the southwest could have added a local station without increasing interference (because of their remoteness), but were prevented from doing so by the Davis Amendment.

Although the Commission's primary responsibility was radio, on February 25, 1928, Charles Jenkins Laboratories

Charles Jenkins Laboratories

Charles Jenkins Laboratories was the enterprise headed by Charles Francis Jenkins that was granted the first commercial television license in the United States, station W3XK. The Laboratories also operated experimental station W2XCR....

of Washington, DC, became the first holder of a television

Television

Television is a telecommunication medium for transmitting and receiving moving images that can be monochrome or colored, with accompanying sound...

license from the Federal Radio Commission.

There were even a few amateur radio

Amateur radio

Amateur radio is the use of designated radio frequency spectrum for purposes of private recreation, non-commercial exchange of messages, wireless experimentation, self-training, and emergency communication...

stations authorized to broadcast television. Among them was Mel Dunbrack, W1BHD-TV, who began broadcasting mechanical television

Mechanical television

Mechanical television was a broadcast television system that used mechanical or electromechanical devices to capture and display video images. However, the images themselves were usually transmitted electronically and via radio waves...

in the 1920s, and Truett Kimzey, W5AGO, who began broadcasting television in March 1934.

Formation of the Federal Radio Commission

President Calvin Coolidge

Calvin Coolidge

nominated five men to
the commission: Admiral William H.G. Bullard as chairman,
Colonel John F. Dillon, Eugene O. Sykes, Henry A. Bellows, and Orestes H. Caldwell

Orestes H. Caldwell

Orestes Hampton Caldwell was one of the first five members of the Federal Radio Commission and may have been the first person to coin the term electronics. Born 1888 in Lexington, Kentucky, he graduated from Purdue University as an electrical engineer, specializing in telephone and communications...

.

The first three were confirmed by the United States Senate

United States Senate

The United States Senate is the upper house of the bicameral legislature of the United States, and together with the United States House of Representatives comprises the United States Congress. The composition and powers of the Senate are established in Article One of the U.S. Constitution. Each...

and the
first two died soon afterward. Bellows and Caldwell
didn't receive salaries, but stayed on anyway. These
three did conduct a badly needed reallocation of
frequencies. In October, President Calvin Coolidge

Calvin Coolidge

removed Bellows from the commission; he
returned to Minneapolis where he became manager of CBS

CBS

-affiliate WCCO. In November 1927 Harold Lafount and
Sam Pickard joined the commission. In March 1928
Caldwell was barely re-confirmed and Ira E. Robinson

Ira E. Robinson

Ira Ellsworth Robinson was a politician, judge, and the first chairman of the Federal Radio Commission....

became chairman, the commission was finally complete.

The composition of the FRC from 1927 to 1934 was as follows:

Zone 1: Orestes H. Caldwell (New York), Editor of Radio Retailing magazine); Caldwell resigned February 23, 1929 and was replaced by W. D. L. Starbuck (New York), Patent Attorney, appointed May, 1929.

Zone 2: W. H. G. Bullard (Pennsylvania); Bullard died November 24, 1927 and was replaced by Ira E. Robinson (West Virginia), State Supreme Court judge; Robinson resigned January, 1932 and was replaced by Col. Thad H. Brown

Thad H. Brown

Thaddeus Harold Brown was a Republican lawyer and politician from the U.S. State of Ohio. After serving in the United States Army during World War I, he was elected Ohio Secretary of State 1923-1927, and was a commissioner of the Federal Radio Commission and then the Federal Communications...

(Ohio), lawyer & politico, holding various appointed, and elective offices including Ohio Secretary of State

Ohio Secretary of State

The Secretary of State is responsible for overseeing elections in the State of Ohio. The Secretary of State also is responsible for registering business entities and granting them the authority to do business within the state, registering secured transactions, and granting access to public...

, appointed March 28, 1932. Brown remained on the FRC until he was appointed to the FCC in 1934.

Zone 3: Eugene Octave Sykes (Mississippi) remained until he was appointed to the FCC in 1934.

Zone 4: Henry Adams Bellows (Minnesota); Bellows was forced to resign October 31, 1927 and later became chairman of the National Association of Broadcasters

National Association of Broadcasters

The National Association of Broadcasters is a trade association, workers union, and lobby group representing the interests of for-profit, over-the-air radio and television broadcasters in the United States...

; Bellows was replaced by Sam Pickard (Kansas); Pickard resigned January 31, 1929 and was replaced by Charles McKinley Saltzman (Iowa), appointed May, 1929; Saltzman resigned in irritation in June, 1932 and was replaced by James H. Hanley

Zone 5: John F. Dillon (California); Dillon died October 8, 1927 and was replaced by Harold A. Lafount (Utah); Lafount stayed on the FRC until its replacement by the FCC, but he was not appointed to the FCC. In the late 1930s Lafount became president of the National Independent Broadcasters.

Radio licensing

In the spring of 1928, the commissoners made
drastic reallocations and told 164 stations to justify
their existence or be forced to stop broadcasting (these hearings came under the title of General Order 32).
Many low-powered independent stations were eliminated, although eighty-one stations did survive, most with reduced
power. Educational stations fared particularly poorly. They
were usually required to share frequencies with
commercial stations and operate during the daytime,
which was considered worthless for adult education.

KFKB Milford, Kansas

Milford, Kansas

Milford is a city in Geary County, Kansas, in the United States. As of the 2010 census, the city population was 530. It is part of the Manhattan, Kansas Metropolitan Statistical Area.-Geography:Milford is located at...

, had been renewed several times by the Federal Radio Commission. It was one of the most popular stations in the nation. KFKB was owned by a surgeon, John R. Brinkley

John R. Brinkley

John Romulus Brinkley was a controversial American medical doctor who experimented with xenotransplantation of goat glands into humans as a means of curing male impotence in clinics across several states, and an advertising and radio pioneer who began the era of Mexican border blaster radio...

, who, among other things, espoused, over the airwaves, implanting slivers of goat testes in men's testicles for "sexual rejuvenation." The American Medical Association

American Medical Association

The American Medical Association , founded in 1847 and incorporated in 1897, is the largest association of medical doctors and medical students in the United States.-Scope and operations:...

was very upset over a program in which he read listener mail describing symptoms, and then prescribed over the air, describing the medication by number. Listeners had to visit a Brinkley "kick back" pharmacy to fill these prescriptions. In 1930 the Federal Radio Commission denied his request for renewal. Brinkley appealed on the grounds of censorship. The U.S. Court of Appeals denied his appeal. The court ruled that the Federal Radio Commission could consider past programming content without it being censorship. This, however, didn't stop the ever-popular Dr. Brinkley, who almost won the governorship of Kansas

Kansas

Kansas is a US state located in the Midwestern United States. It is named after the Kansas River which flows through it, which in turn was named after the Kansa Native American tribe, which inhabited the area. The tribe's name is often said to mean "people of the wind" or "people of the south...

in 1930 by write-in votes. He simply beamed his programs to the United States over 100,000 watt XER

XER

XER can stand for:* XER-AM, a radio station in the 1930s in Villa Acuña, Mexico* XML Encoding Rules, a set of ASN.1 encoding rules for formatting data in XML* The ICAO Code for Xerox Corporation, United States...

from Villa Acuna, Coah, Mexico. This was twice the power of any broadcast radio station save one experimental 500,000 watt station WLW

WLW

WLW is a clear channel talk radio station located in Cincinnati, Ohio, run by Clear Channel Communications. The station broadcasts locally on 700 kHz AM...

Cincinnati. Not to be outdone, Brinkley increased his power to 500,000 watts as well, as XERA, and used a curtain-array antenna to focus his signal northward. In 1941, Brinkley suffered from a series of serious medical problems. During his attempt to recuperate from them, he was charged with mail fraud, but died before the case could be tried.

KGEF Los Angeles, California

Los Angeles, California

Los Angeles , with a population at the 2010 United States Census of 3,792,621, is the most populous city in California, USA and the second most populous in the United States, after New York City. It has an area of , and is located in Southern California...

was the second station to lose its license over what it broadcast. Owned by "Battling Bob" Robert P. Shuler

Robert P. Shuler

Robert Pierce "Fighting Bob" Shuler, Sr. , was an American evangelist and political figure. His radio broadcasts from his Southern Methodist church in Los Angeles, California, during the 1920s and early 1930s attracted a large audience and also drew controversy with his attacks on politicians,...

(not to be confused with the Robert Schuller of the Crystal Cathedral

Crystal Cathedral

The Crystal Cathedral is a Protestant Christian church building in the city of Garden Grove, in Orange County, California, United States. It is the headquarters and principal place of worship for Crystal Cathedral Ministries, a church founded in 1955 by Robert H. Schuller and affiliated with the...

a generation later), he built his station at Trinity Methodist Church, South, in downtown Los Angeles from a donation from Methodist philanthropist Lizzie Glide, who also funded San Francisco's famous Glide Memorial Church

Glide Memorial Church

Glide Memorial Church is a church in San Francisco, California, affiliated with the United Methodist Church that opened in 1929. Although conservative until the 1960s, since then it has served as a counter-culture rallying point and has been one of the most prominently liberal churches in the...

. The station quickly ran afoul of the political interests of a corrupt Los Angeles, who didn't appreciate either Shuler's reactionary politics or his often accurate knowledge of who was being paid off by whom. KGEF v. FRC followed in the footsteps of KFKB v. FRC as the second of the one-two punch that made past programming relevant in license renewals, though the primary reason for the rejection of the license renewal was that Shuler owned the station (because Glide wrote the check to him) but the church held the license.

WNYC

WNYC

WNYC is a set of call letters shared by a pair of co-owned, non-profit, public radio stations located in New York City.WNYC broadcasts on the AM band at 820 kHz, and WNYC-FM is at 93.9 MHz. Both stations are members of National Public Radio and carry distinct, but similar news/talk programs...

, the municipal station of New York City

New York City

New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...

, was assigned a part-time, low-power channel. It appealed and lost. Even though the station was government owned, the Federal Radio Commission said that city ownership did not give the station any special standing concerning the "public interest, convenience, and necessity." This was representative of the decline of public broadcasting.

Different types of radio services

The Federal Radio Commission issued many licenses for radio services other than radio broadcasting. In 1932, the FRC had licensed about thirty thousand amateur radio

Amateur radio

stations, about two thousand ship radios, and about one thousand fixed-point land radio stations. The number of licensed radio broadcasting stations (all of which were AM

Amplitude modulation

Amplitude modulation is a technique used in electronic communication, most commonly for transmitting information via a radio carrier wave. AM works by varying the strength of the transmitted signal in relation to the information being sent...

stations) was 625. Public attention in the mass media, however, mainly concerned radio broadcasting. Radio came to be closely associated in common language with radio broadcasting. Many other radio stations, however, were operating at the same time as early radio broadcasting stations.

The FRC's regulatory enforcement efforts focused on radio broadcasting content. In 1932, out of a total of 424 FRC license investigations, 242 concerned radio broadcasting. Among those 242 radio broadcasting investigations, 156 concerned radio broadcasting content. Analyzing radio broadcasting content is a very different type of technical expertise than evaluating non-content-related radio operations.

Enforcing non-content-related radio regulations occupied relatively more regulatory attention during the time of the FRC than in the early twenty-first century, in part because radio equipment was more prone to interference (thus requiring more attention to technical issues). The FRC, along with the Radio Division of the United States Department of Commerce

United States Department of Commerce

, had in 1932 about as many staff members working on enforcement of non-content-related radio rules as the Federal Communications Commission

Federal Communications Commission

had in 2002. The total number of radio licenses held, however, was about fifty times greater in 2002 than in 1932. The FRC, along with the Department of Commerce, emphasized education and cooperation in getting radio operators to adhere to radio operating rules. Subsequent proliferation of radio uses other than radio broadcasting did not lead to more regulatory resources devoted to enforcing non-content-related radio regulations.

Other accomplishments

The FRC carried out provisions of the Radio Act of 1927 to license persons operating amateur and commercial transmitters. It also complied with new treaty obligations to assign U.S. stations ITU prefix

ITU prefix

The International Telecommunication Union allocates call sign prefixes for radio and television stations of all types. They also form the basis for, but do not exactly match, aircraft registration identifiers. These prefixes are agreed upon internationally, and are a form of country code...

es.

Controversy

When broadcasting began to be regulated, and stations had to have a broadcast licence, some saw this as an infringement of the First Amendment to the United States Constitution

First Amendment to the United States Constitution

The First Amendment to the United States Constitution is part of the Bill of Rights. The amendment prohibits the making of any law respecting an establishment of religion, impeding the free exercise of religion, abridging the freedom of speech, infringing on the freedom of the press, interfering...

stating that the government shall not stop freedom of speech in the media. This was because prior to broadcast licensing, anyone could start transmitting their views cheaply and efficiently. The FRC cracked down on "vulgar" language (for example the profanity-filled rants of William K. Henderson on KWKH

KWKH

KWKH is a classic country music radio station serving Shreveport, Louisiana. The 50-kilowatt station broadcasts at 1130 kHz. Formerly owned by Clear Channel Communications and Gap Central Broadcasting, it is now owned by Townsquare Media....

, non-mainstream political views, and "fringe" religions.

Almost from the start, the FRC was accused of being captured by the industry it regulated

Regulatory capture

In economics, regulatory capture occurs when a state regulatory agency created to act in the public interest instead advances the commercial or special interests that dominate the industry or sector it is charged with regulating. Regulatory capture is a form of government failure, as it can act as...

, radio broadcasters. Historians and contemporary critics who held this position generally pointed to the results of FRC regulation which, in many cases, advantaged large commercial radio broadcasters at the expense of smaller noncommercial broadcasters. Early radio regulation has since become a commonly-used example of rent-seeking.

Abolishment of the Federal Radio Commission

In 1934 Congress passed the Communications Act

Communications Act of 1934

The Communications Act of 1934 is a United States federal law, enacted as Public Law Number 416, Act of June 19, 1934, ch. 652, 48 Stat. 1064, by the 73rd Congress, signed by President Franklin D. Roosevelt, codified as Chapter 5 of Title 47 of the United States Code, et seq. The Act replaced the...

, which abolished the Federal Radio Commission and transferred jurisdiction over radio licensing to a new Federal Communications Commission

Federal Communications Commission

. Title III of the Communications Act contained provisions very similar to the Radio Act of 1927, and the new FCC largely took over the operations and precedents of the FRC (the FCC also acquired jurisdiction over communications common carriers, such as telephone and telegraph companies, from the Interstate Commerce Commission).

External links

The Radio Act of 1927 as a Product of Progressivism
DOCUMENTS OF THE FEDERAL RADIO COMMISSION
The Radio Act of 2009
Gorden, Douglas (2002), "Revolutionary Ideas for Radio Regulation," Section II.A, Long-Run Decline in Administrative Enforcement (includes citations to print literature).
Gorden, Thomas (1990), The Rationality of U.S. Regulation of the Broadcast Spectrum (discusses the controversy over the FRC and rent-seeking).
Cybertelecom :: Radio Legal and Regulatory History

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