FCC Opens Investigation into NPR and PBS

[The Beat]

Who said it's what I support? I'm just telling you what the rules are. You don't like them.

This isn't an argument. You began by asking questions. I directed you to the answers. Then you got upset. Sorry.

Why would I be upset? I am winning the argument.

You still have yet to tell us all why CPB should get one tax payer dollar when so many AMs and LPFMs are going off the air due to lack of funding. There is no way a city grade NYC station should be funded when so many small market public servants are going off the air.

Change the funding requirements or blow the whole thing up. What exactly don't you agree with?

 

[davideduardo]

Yes, I want stations who really need the money to get it; not the million dollar partisan properties you support. "What's wrong with that?"

Name-calling already? You have definitely lost faith in your own argument and any discernable points you were making.

Signed,

King Of The World

Please keep this civil. There was no need to attack BigA when all he did was state the facts as of today.

 

[The Beat]

Please keep this civil. There was no need to attack BigA when all he did was state the facts as of today.

This was not an attack. It was a reply. Please re-read.

 

[davideduardo]

Why would I be upset? I am winning the argument.

No, you lost several posts ago. You are simply attacking the messenger because you don’t like the facts.

You still have yet to tell us all why CPB should get one tax payer dollar when so many AMs and LPFMs are going off the air due to lack of funding. There is no way a city grade NYC station should be funded when so many small market public servants are going off the air.

AMs are going off because nearly nobody wants to listen to old technology when there are multiple and better options.

Change the funding requirements or blow the whole thing up. What exactly don't you agree with?

 

[The Beat]

You are simply attacking the messenger because you don’t like the facts.

AMs are going off because nearly nobody wants to listen to old technology when there are multiple and better options.

I disagree. AMs are going off the air because they have not been properly supported by the FCC.

Please explain how I am attacking anyone.

 

[TheBigA]

Why would I be upset? I am winning the argument.

In your mind

You still have yet to tell us all why CPB should get one tax payer dollar when so many AMs and LPFMs are going off the air due to lack of funding.

Because it's the law. Congress has already appropriated the money. As I said, CPB makes its case to congress every year. That's their job, not mine.

Change the funding requirements or blow the whole thing up. What exactly don't you agree with?

I think I already answered that. You don't like it.

 

[The Beat]

I think I already said what I think. You don't like it.

Then we have reached an impasse. Be well.

 

[bigdonho]

Using a lot of these arguments you might as well have public funds go to support private, religious schools. Here in Florida...Oh never mind.

 

[gr8oldies]

The state governors are responsible for the local public schools, not the federal government. It's one of the things they run on at election time. If they spent more time running schools instead of attacking teachers and librarians, the schools might be better. There was once a concept that government provides public service. That apparently doesn't exist anymore. It's now everyone for themselves.

I went to college to be a teacher. After a year as a practice teacher, I decided I was better off working in radio. That says a lot.



I was responding to a comment about fixing the system so smaller stations get the money. But yes, instead of fixing things, they prefer to shut it down.

I'm not sure that simply defunding CPB will kill it. From what I see, only action taken by congress can kill an agency. That's sort of a constitutional question that the president is trying to get around in other areas.

Private interests spent $4.2 million to buy a couple of legislative seats to pass Gov. Lee's voucher scam for already-wealthy families going to elite private schools and the Heritage Foundation's Jesus McSchools, Inc. $4.2 million could have bought a lot of books, but wait, we don't like books anymore. Trump/Elon wants this world of no public services at all. We pay private corporations for absolutely everything including driving on private roads and walking on private sidewalks. I do have a question: We get rid of NOAA and the NWS, who sends out weather warnings and does the EAS even exist if we have the dream of almost no government? Obviously, no CPB/NPR

 

[davideduardo]

I disagree. AMs are going off the air because they have not been properly supported by the FCC.

What else could the FCC have done for AM? It is old technology on a part of the spectrum that is horribly affected by nighttime skywave. You can not change the laws of physics.

Please explain how I am attacking anyone.

Reread your posts. If you don't see it, I can't help with any logical explanation.

BigA has established considerable "cred" here through his intelligent and informed posts. Who are you and how do you qualify to disparage his factual post? And, again, he was citing facts, not giving an opinion.

 

[The Beat]

What else could the FCC have done for AM? It is old technology on a part of the spectrum that is horribly affected by nighttime skywave. You can not change the laws of physics.

Reread your posts. If you don't see it, I can't help with any logical explanation.

BigA has established considerable "cred" here through his intelligent and informed posts. Who are you and how do you qualify to disparage his factual post? And, again, he was citing facts, not giving an opinion.

Like I said above, we've reached an impasse. We don't have to agree.

 

[R.D.P.]

To @DavidEduardo and @TheBigA, I agree with your postings on the subject. You both are spot on!

Dan <><​

 

[TheBigA]

I don't see it as an impasse. But I think the discussion demonstrates why things are where they are in congress and at the FCC at this point.

The people who will make this decision simply don't know how the system they're about to defund works. They haven't read the law, they don't know the facts, and every time they talk about the subject, they show their ignorance. Here's a story where Brendan Carr is still saying that "taxpayers subsidize NPR."

FCC’s Brendan Carr sarcastically cheers Sheryl Crow’s NPR donation after selling Tesla in protest – better than ‘taxpayer dollars’

Singer-songwriter Sheryl Crow slammed “President Musk” and shared a video showing her Tesla car driving away on a truck bed.

nypost.com

He is so steeped in Washington that he thinks NPR is in charge, that it's a top down system like congress, and the stations have no choice. When the truth is that the stations own NPR, they choose its CEO, and they determine what the company does. Its a decentralized, federalist system set up by republicans just like him. But they did it when he was in diapers, so he has no knowledge of it.

This is a guy who is supposed to be a regulator. He's not supposed to have these kinds of ideological biases if he's going to be an impartial regulator. Nobody voted for him. He's just another unelected bureaucrat in the swamp.

 

[The Beat]

I don't see it as an impasse.

An impasse, in this case, means reaching a place where no more progress can be made. You may disagree, but I feel that's where we are. Agree to disagree.

 

[cc333]

This is a guy who is supposed to be a regulator. He's not supposed to have these kinds of ideological biases if he's going to be an impartial regulator. Nobody voted for him. He's just another unelected bureaucrat in the swamp.

That same so-called "swamp" that was supposed to be "drained" back in 2017, and the reason that never happened was because there was no swamp to drain.

So to continue with a similar analogy, what I've seen instead is the wanton destruction of a nice marshy lake with toxic nuclear and industrial waste.

In other words, where there was once no swamp, there is now, and there's no getting rid of it or the foul and evil creatures that now inhabit its filthy, putrid depths.

Not everyone may agree, and that's OK.

c

 

[bigdonho]

What else could the FCC have done for AM? It is old technology on a part of the spectrum that is horribly affected by nighttime skywave. You can not change the laws of physics.

Well, they mandated TV move to digital. Could they have done the same thing for AM radio?

 

[AbrahamJSimpson]

Well, they mandated TV move to digital. Could they have done the same thing for AM radio?

It's not the same thing by any stretch of the imagination, from consumer interest and behavior to available technology to the underlying reasons. I'm not sure "apples to oranges" quite applies strongly enough.

No one needs to save AM radio. No one needed to save the horse and buggy industry. Much like buggies became a niche (hi, Amish country), AM has become a place for some niche of its own, be it talk that doesn't yet have a home on FM in a given area, religion, ethnic or whatever. '

We have digital audio distribution. There are near infinite options to get content of your choosing through a plethora of services and apps. Yes, some you need to pay for--welcome to the real world. Some are free, or lower cost, with the "price" being ads. Doesn't matter; the options are there.

You know how "HD Radio" caught on like wildfire with FM? How people were storming the aisles at Best Buy to get the latest receivers for home and car use? How the home stereo rack made a stunning comeback?

Yeah, me either.

FM sounds better than AM, so it supplanted it long ago for most music formats in most areas. What, exactly, would some FCC mandate have accomplished? No one was going out to buy an AM radio because...hey, now it's digital! We moved on. "Radio" is really audio content, and now that's delivered in multiple ways, just like TV now includes all those streaming services. Think like a consumer.

 

[johnbasalla]

It's not the same thing by any stretch of the imagination, from consumer interest and behavior to available technology to the underlying reasons. I'm not sure "apples to oranges" quite applies strongly enough.

No one needs to save AM radio. No one needed to save the horse and buggy industry. Much like buggies became a niche (hi, Amish country), AM has become a place for some niche of its own, be it talk that doesn't yet have a home on FM in a given area, religion, ethnic or whatever. '

We have digital audio distribution. There are near infinite options to get content of your choosing through a plethora of services and apps. Yes, some you need to pay for--welcome to the real world. Some are free, or lower cost, with the "price" being ads. Doesn't matter; the options are there.

You know how "HD Radio" caught on like wildfire with FM? How people were storming the aisles at Best Buy to get the latest receivers for home and car use? How the home stereo rack made a stunning comeback?

Yeah, me either.

FM sounds better than AM, so it supplanted it long ago for most music formats in most areas. What, exactly, would some FCC mandate have accomplished? No one was going out to buy an AM radio because...hey, now it's digital! We moved on. "Radio" is really audio content, and now that's delivered in multiple ways, just like TV now includes all those streaming services. Think like a consumer.

There was a time when AM Stereo radio was tried. I recall that people said it sounded good, but having competing versions of it, and no standardization chosen, seems to have been, at least a part, of AM Stereo's failure. If the FCC would have chosen one standard, or AM Stereo system, could the outcome have been different over time?

 

[AbrahamJSimpson]

Not materially different. A comparative handful of people said it “sounded good.” Relative to the general population, that’s a drop in the bucket. What would motivate people to buy new devices for AM radio that they weren’t getting from other, more useful devices? And if they only upgraded some devices, that’s not enough to sustain the model.

TVs are easy; newer sets are continually getting better and better visually. They’re often preloaded with the main apps people use (or are easily connected to another device that delivers that content). It stays put (typically) in a place in a house.

One version of “AM stereo” was not going to bring people flocking back to something they had long since moved away from.

Nostalgia is a powerful drug, but wow…the “save AM” thing is some next-level stuff.

 

[kevtronics]

There was a time when AM Stereo radio was tried. I recall that people said it sounded good, but having competing versions of it, and no standardization chosen, seems to have been, at least a part, of AM Stereo's failure. If the FCC would have chosen one standard, or AM Stereo system, could the outcome have been different over time?

The FCC did choose Motorola C-Quam as the single standard for AM Stereo in 1993, joining the rest of the world, which had already standardized on it by then (Australia in 1985, Canada in 1988, Japan in 1992, etc.).

Failure to standardize on a single system until consumer interest had waned also doomed Teletext and Quadraphonic broadcasting.