Will the Fairness Doctrine be Resurrected?

[Aljr]

The fact that this topic keeps popping up on board after board is indicative of just how thoroughly the staffs and management of local talk radio stations (that is to say, the staff left after numerous budget cuts) is made up of committed conservatives.

Nah,they're made up of folks who like making a buck. Right wing yahooism get's listeners and sells advertising. AM radio was dying on the vine before right-wing talk blew up. For the past two decades it's been a license to print money if you've got a decent sales staff.

Radio & TV honchos would run paint drying if it sold. "And now,the sounds of latex!"

 

[Aljr]

Was talk radio 'fair' when the Fairness Doctrine was in effect? I don't remember. There wasn't as much to listen to then and what I heard wasn't very entertaining.

No,the Fairness Doctrine just gave you the right to rebuttal on the station that had done the show or made the statement you disagreed with. It required the station to give the person/group some time to give their viewpoint,not equal time.which is the Strawman many on the right are throwing out for you to believe.

A lot of rebuttals (and PSA's) were run in the wee hours of Monday mornings in those days.

Johnny Carson used to do a recurring character on his show that poked fun at how stations handled the Fairness Doctrine and the folks who demanded their share of time. He'd come out dressed in an Elmer Fudd cap and play a guy who would rant about various Commie conspiracies only he knew about.

(That character would fit right in as a right-wing talk show host these days.LOL!)

The airwaves belong to the public,not media conglomerates. They should be accessible to that public.That's why the Fairness Doctrine was enacted and that's why it should have never been taken away.

 

[TheFonz]

The airwaves belong to the public,not media conglomerates. They should be accessible to that public.That's why the Fairness Doctrine was enacted and that's why it should have never been taken away.

Wow!!! Does this mean that I'll get my '50s Oldies station back?

 

[Aljr]

Only if you play Big Joe Turner's "Shake,Rattle,and Roll" and not the Bill Haley cover. No Elvis version of "Hound Dog" either,only Big Mama Thornton the way God intended.


(A man singin' "Hound Dog". I think my Uncle Buck was right about that Presley boy.)

 

[TheBigA]

The airwaves belong to the public,not media conglomerates. They should be accessible to that public.That's why the Fairness Doctrine was enacted and that's why it should have never been taken away.

The point of the FD was not to give the public access to the airwaves. We read a disclaimer after all editorials that specifically stated you needed to be a responsible spokesperson in order to get access to the airwaves. That meant the head of a citizen group or some kind of special interest. Eliminating the FD in fact opened the airwaves to the general public, which is what we have now.

 

[Goat Rodeo Cowboy]

The point of the FD was not to give the public access to the airwaves. We read a disclaimer after all editorials that specifically stated you needed to be a responsible spokesperson in order to get access to the airwaves. That meant the head of a citizen group or some kind of special interest. Eliminating the FD in fact opened the airwaves to the general public, which is what we have now.

Thank you for a break-through in terminology and logic!!!

Let's assume you and I form a company and we buy the perfect little radio station... one with just the right amount of potential to meet our joint skill-sets and imagination.

So we start the heavy-duty work of defining what our programming will be.

We face the question that is at the heart of so many debates today on the R-I forums:

We have this one little frequency that has been handed over to us for cultivation. Philosophically, does this "channel" belong to, and have primary responsibility to:

1. The government

2. The community

3. The licensee (and their bankers ;D )

4. Responsible groups that represent community, philosophy, philanthropy, religion, politics are other movements.

5. The Listeners as an identifiable group.

6. All individual potential listeners within the coverage area.

7. Only those listeners who take some kind of action to "claim" their right/ownership through letters, phone-ins, or visits to remotes and other events.

Just for the sake of discussion I will offer the following response to my own question:

I would assign some values... maybe 30% to number 6, 30% to number 4, 20% to number 2, 20% to number 3.

 

[TheFonz]

Only if you play Big Joe Turner's "Shake,Rattle,and Roll" and not the Bill Haley cover. No Elvis version of "Hound Dog" either,only Big Mama Thornton the way God intended.

Sorry...................................they don't "test" well.

 

[smedge2006]

AM radio was dying on the vine before right-wing talk blew up. For the past two decades it's been a license to print money if you've got a decent sales staff.

Let's address another of the urban myths of the last 20 years...

"Rush Limbaugh (conservative talk) saved AM radio."

Wrong. AM radio listening was higher as a percentage of the total in 1988 than it is now. It has continuously dropped since then, except for a couple of years in the mid-90's when it stayed flat. I'd be willing to credit the mid-90's plateau to Rush, but not much else. At best, Rush saved ONE AM station in each town. Sports saved another. The rest descended into the Hades of brokered programming, screaming preachers and infomercials.

 

[Tom Wells]

AM radio was dying on the vine before right-wing talk blew up. For the past two decades it's been a license to print money if you've got a decent sales staff.

Let's address another of the urban myths of the last 20 years...

"Rush Limbaugh (conservative talk) saved AM radio."

Wrong. AM radio listening was higher as a percentage of the total in 1988 than it is now. It has continuously dropped since then, except for a couple of years in the mid-90's when it stayed flat. I'd be willing to credit the mid-90's plateau to Rush, but not much else. At best, Rush saved ONE AM station in each town. Sports saved another. The rest descended into the Hades of brokered programming, screaming preachers and infomercials.

1988 was about the time GM began releasing the design for the "mushmaster" AM radio sections, up 'till then their AMs sounded wonderful, especially
the few years while they sometimes had a manual DNR button, stereo, or both. I still maintain this was the first major technical
"shot in the foot" for AM as to whether a listener will be motivated to move to the "cleaner" sound of "funny" modulation.
Which, to my ears, still sounds like the first (ahem "bright" high IMD ) discrete stereos of 1971 compared to what a good AM which can sound like.

The mushmasters didn't really impact the "largerness" of Rush's sound.
I feel he could have been twice the influence he was if he were wise enough to advise the even wider audience he'd surely have gathered if he could have only thought as a statesman, instead of as a politician. This would be the extreme upside to a wisely applied concept of fairness, in actual service to the
community, instead of any particular special interest's.

For the record, I both agree and disagree with Rush's views. Sho' nuff depends what he's talking about.
And I still long for the voice of Miss Emily Litella and her like.

 

[Len14043]

As a listener of talk radio, I was initially alarmed at the prospect of the FD being re-enacted after the 2008 election. However, after thinking it through, it is evident that technology will render any version of the FD irrelevant. If fact, the FD will hurt AM broadcasters while sat radio grows. Talk radio listeners are a committed group and will follow Rush, Savage, etc to another medium. Instead of the construction worker listening to Rush on the local AM station, he will go to a website and download it onto an IPOD. That way he won't have to worry about missing some of the show while taking a bathroom break. If the democrats think they can silence speech they disagree with legislatively, they are sorely mistaken. The FD will only hurt the broadcasters that probably donated to their campaigns.The FD will cause many AM stations to go silent because the demand for cooking shows, sports talk, etc is limited.

 

[smedge2006]

If fact, the FD will hurt AM broadcasters while sat radio grows. Talk radio listeners are a committed group and will follow Rush, Savage, etc to another medium. Instead of the construction worker listening to Rush on the local AM station, he will go to a website and download it onto an IPOD.

If you think that FD would silence Rush on AM radio, you need to wake up and smell the coffee.

There were talk radio stations that were virtually all-one side or another as far back as 1982 -- well within the FD era, which ended in 1987. I can cite two -- WNWS, Miami was all liberal except for a token weekend conservative, and WPLP, Tampa was all conservative except for a token liberal. Both stations occasionally had guests and topics, but it was anything but all-cooking-shows-all-the-time. Back in the 80's, talk radio was local and talk radio stations usually took on the political colorations of their communities. Quite probably, you do not remember the 80's or did not have a talk radio station in your town at that time.

A lot of people with axes to grind have spent a lot of ink and pixels to engage in "post hoc, ergo propter hoc" reasoning. Rush Limbaugh did not sprout because of the Fairness Doctrine -- but a lot of writers and ideologues, right and left, as well as people just trying to put together a story on deadline and needing a quick explanation, pointed to FD's repeal. Here's an example of a liberal thinking FD caused Limbaugh, and it's just as delusional as the right wing arguments about FD "creating" talk radio:

http://www.talkinbroadway.com/regional/nj/nj312.html

FD would not mean the end of Rush Limbaugh or conservative talk, any more than it stopped WPLP or WNWS from programming their lineups the way they wished.

By the way, Howard Stern made a big deal about escaping FCC regulation by going to satellite... and how much is their stock worth now? Something worth noting...

Many AM stations are going dark already. According to FCC records, there are five percent fewer AMs on the air now than in 1990. As I pointed out earlier in this thread, Rush Limbaugh did not save AM radio. Fewer people listen to it now than when he started in 1988.