The Property Value of Airwaves

[radio_radio]

Since this board has been dead as a door nail for quite a while, let's have a thinking person's discussion:

Ayn Rand in 1964 wrote on the property value of airwaves, an excerpt is below....what do you all think? John Kesler-Emmis

"Any material element or resource which, in order to become of use or value to men, requires the application of human knowledge and effort, should be private property - by the right of those who apply the knowledge and effort.

[EDIT*]

http://goo.gl/0zdkZ
[URL to source material provided as a courtesy by Radio-Info]

Thoughts? Comments? Sarcastic remarks?

I agree with her on many points

[EDIT*- truncated to conform with standards of Fair Use]

 

[Tom Wells]

When there's more time, I'd like to reply more fully, but in short, the problem with this perspective is that
it only permits money to be accounted, when there is so much more.

It is foolish to presume the "ether" is of no use unless turned to the service of profit.
That "ether" is so important, science threw it away as a bothersome inexplicable thing, and now 100 years later,
accepts as something that must of necessity exist to permit reality.

But it's like blood, very "useful" to everyone, while we don't enumerate the benefits.
It can be commmercialized, maybe...
Then there are those who don't even permit that blood can be commercialized, see the Jehovah's Witnesses.

Ayn Rand is limited by a pair of blinders whe willingly ties on for herself.
As anyone who lets materiality obscure or mislead.

 

[ChiefEngineer]

Robert Cialdini Influence : Science and Practice forwards the notion that the medium of broadcasting is a "shortcut" that allows one to bypass the tried and true methods of hard work. The "shortcuts" are used for the public good and otherwise. He believes that the use of a shortcut for "profit motivated" measures should require one to scream loudly that no one should use the said business as it is profit motivated. Cialdini is a professor of Psychology and Marketing at Arizona State University. I note he uses the media to promote his books.

If something is not "profitable" it is useless. This isn't just money, it has a wide range of implications. The little old lady who forwards Anti Abortion projects is profitable and gives her purpose if not financially. The use of profit in anything should be a consideration. At some level, almost everything is profitable. I will note that when we moved East of Indy the Jehovah's Witnesses have visited us more than any other church. Their net worth is less than the Catholic Church, financially. The Indianapolis Archdiocese cares more for profit than any of the parishioners.

The airwaves are less public than they have been. Through lobbying we have seen changes in accountability for broadcasters. Thank you Ronald Reagan, RIP. The lacking areas that may be harmful have to do with political advertising and slanted news. MSNBC and Fox News are sometimes equal in their misrepresentation of America.

With the internet we have a new frontier that many claim is equal to the Gutenberg press. Gutenberg had a single press. If Everyone had a press would the media be equally compelling? The government is muddled in fixing the ways they would censor this too, or, control it if that sounds better. This is the same process the Church has seen since we went from one Pope to millions with the Reformation. It didn't kill Christianity, it defined it.

I like analogies in radio that include train wrecks and broadcasting. Is she dead? Very insensitive of me to ask. Why did you bring this 1964 article to life again? And me, well, it is Christmas break. Another excerpt is this.

If you want to gauge a collectivist theory's distance from reality, ask yourself: by what inconceivable standard can it be claimed that the broadcasting airways are the property of some illiterate share-cropper who will never be able to grasp the concept of electronics, or of some hillbilly whose engineering capacity is not quite sufficient to cope with a corn-liquor still -- and that broadcasting, the product of an incalculable amount of scientific genius, is to be ruled by the will of such owners?

Remember that this literally is the alleged principle at the base of the entire legal structure of our broadcasting industry.

Given the devaluation of radio stock, many companies "worth" is more than the stock value for the company. (Billing plus property equal one amount, this is less than the stock value.) There is some proponent who notes radio is dead. No man, look at the newspaper and many are still billing more than any radio station.

Radio had a magical aspect at some point. For some it is still there. The Generation Jones (not a baby boomer-Google it) lives in an era that is difficult to understand because we had a specific work ethic instilled. Now there are so many that have no work ethic and job that the prospect of the next 30 years of life seem murky. Many had a job at 16. I know of some who are in their 20's and have had no job, drivers license, or interest in moving forward. There are many of them. There are increasingly fewer of us.

We are in an era when anything with value is questioned. We need to define what we do as important, no, a Public Service. I kept hoping Congress would make broadcasters first responders.

As for me, I am working on a new still, I mean, radio station. In my side of things profit is in leading people to Jesus. The money side is hardly ever there. I have to pray there is profit later. "Tina Turner and Proud Mary now on True Oldies."

 

[borderblaster]

The value of the airwaves is nil, I suppose. If you buy WXXX and I float the note, I can get your equipment and real estate back if you default but I can't get 92.5.

 

[Tom Wells]

Chief Engineer, I love all your points.

One point, in the excerpt, made but not outwardly stated, is that one cannot be the master of something one does
not inherently understand.

Can an MBA put a signal on the air, given a box of discrete components?

What if they were given a schematic?
Probably not enough.
What if they were given Heathkit sytle instructions?


At what point is considered mastery and at what point is any skill/craft/art/engineered destined to be devalued?

If broadcasting is a business, let the business people build the physical plant.

What's that? You can just BUY your way onto the airwaves?
Big problem, as in licensing people to drive who are not prepared for such responsibility.

I would tell Ayn Rand to build her own station, and then she is fully entitled to use the shortcut and decide
what information will be broadcast. Short of that, either the business must respect the "art/engineering" fiscally,
lest the actual valuation be knowingly and frankly devalued before all in the service of business/profit.

There is some inkling of Ayn understanding this and almost explaining it to herself in Atlas Shrugged.

The idea that it should all just "fall apart" if no one (society) were willing to pay $$ to reward handsomely those who
"invented" anything IS appealing to the postion of intellectual property.
I have the same feeling when I see machinery abused/misunderstood/uncared for.

On the other hand, such knowledge/advantage that permits usefulness and profit
cannot be wielded as power, or it becomes the corrosive of its own undoing.

Neither the profit nor the knowledge is to be hoarded for use as a tool of usury.
Those who "profit" have the responsibility to behave and live in a way that they're not fooling themselves about the
dollar issues. Those who have knowledge/craft have an equal responsibility to teach others the skill
that permits a craft so useful and desirable as to permit "a business"

When extreme overweight etc results in diabetes with attendant circulation problems in legs, there
are some real considerations when the doctor suggests you lose a foot, leg, etc.

This is where radio is. Big bloated head, full bodied, but can't feel the toes much anymore.
Even the feet are getting a bit hard to tell where they are.
Is the next step a sure one, or a tippy, mossy covered rock underwater?

Ask an engineer and a business person. The answer is surely somewhere in between.

 

[Tom Burns]

"Can an MBA put a signal on the air, given a box of discrete components?"

Yes and have in several markets.