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FCC Brings On "Distinguished Scholar in Residence" shakes up the broadcasters...
From: Dave Farber <dave () farber net>
Date: Mon, 28 Dec 2009 17:11:12 -0500
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From: Tim Pozar <pozar () lns com> Date: December 28, 2009 4:47:32 PM ESTTo: dave () farber net, ip <ip () v2 listbox com>, Dewayne Hendricks <dewayne () warpspeed com > Subject: FCC Brings On "Distinguished Scholar in Residence" shakes up the broadcasters...
Not sure if folks saw this announcement: http://legaltimes.typepad.com/blt/2009/12/fcc-distinguished-scholar-in-residence-1.html December 10, 2009 FCC Brings On "Distinguished Scholar in Residence" A Duke University law professor will begin a new job next week as the first "Distinguished Scholar in Residence" at the Federal Communications Commission. First amendment and telecommunications scholar Stuart Benjamin, the Douglas B. Maggs Chair in Law, is taking a leave of absence from his teaching position to fill the new post created by FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski. Benjamin will work in the Office of Strategic Planning and will focus on spectrum reform, First Amendment issues and long-term strategy. [...] Seems that Mr. Benjamin wrote a paper called "Roasting the Pig to Burn Down the House: A Modest Proposal" <http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1284365> that is described in the abstract as: This essay addresses the question whether one should support regulatory proposals that one believes are, standing alone, bad public policy in the hope that they will do such harm that they will ultimately produce (likely unintended) good results. For instance, one may regard a set of proposed regulations as foolish and likely to hobble the industry regulated, but perhaps desirable if one believes that we would be better off without that industry. I argue that television broadcasting is such an industry, and thus that we should support new regulations that will make broadcasting unprofitable, to hasten its demise. But it cannot be just any costly regulation: if a regulation would tend to entrench broadcasting's place on the airwaves, then the regulation will not help to free up the spectrum and should be avoided. Ideal regulations for this purpose are probably those that are pure dead-weight loss - regulations that cost broadcasters significant amounts of money but have no impact on their behavior. Am I serious in writing all this? Not entirely, but mostly. I do think that society would benefit if the wireless frequencies currently devoted to broadcast could be used for other services, and the first-best ways of achieving that goal may not be realistic. I am proposing a second-best - a fairly cynical second-best, but a second-best all the same. I would prefer not to go down this path, but if that is the only way to hasten the shriveling of television broadcasting's spectrum usage, then it is probably a path worth taking. Needless to say the Broadcasters are taking note and as Radio/TV Business Report wrote: RBR-TVBR observation: We have to believe that a regulatory battle of this magnitude will at the very least consume a great deal of time. But a lot of forces seem to be lining up behind spectrum reallocation – the time to mount a stiff defense is now. <http://www.rbr.com/tv-cable/19272.html> As someone that has been in the broadcast industry since 1974 andwatched it crumble with the Telecom Act of 1996, I am personally am very happy to see someone with this mind set coming into the FCC to shake upthe current "license as real estate" and "every thing depends on the stock price going up" mindset that broadcasters have. The "Public Service" of radio and TV stations had the last nail driven into its coffin with the Telecom act of '96. Reacting to how the FCC destroyed the standard broadcast bands has been too long in coming. Tim
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- FCC Brings On "Distinguished Scholar in Residence" shakes up the broadcasters... Dave Farber (Dec 28)
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- Re: FCC Brings On "Distinguished Scholar in Residence" shakes up the broadcasters... David Farber (Dec 29)