Friday, October 1, 2010

In what way has deregulation changed the radio and recording industry?

Backin the 1920's people were begging the government for regulation of the radio. There was not enough frequencies and too many radio stations. So in 1927, the Federal Radio Commission was formed to sort out through all of these dilemmas. Well, seventy years later, President Ronald Reagan disagreed with the regulation of the radio and decided he wanted to change it. Thus, the Telecommunications Act was put into place. Now, companies could own as many radio stations as they wanted, and the government had one less thing to keep an eye on. Radio stations no longer had to present both sides of an issue or had to have expectations by the government. Although the FCC, does still have a huge role in the radio today. Radio and television stations are prohibited from having obscenity or indecency within certain hours. The FCC makes sure that they follow the regulations and they have a purpose as a station. The recording industry now records songs specifically, with alternative lyrics because they don't want to be fined by the FCC. CD's must also have warning labels on them showing what is not under regulation. Without the FCC, radio and recording industries would have no limits to stay within and could produce whatever they wanted to. Deregulation has helped to organize the standards of radio and please the public.

No comments:

Post a Comment