FCC Brings On "Distinguished Scholar in Residence" shakes up the broadcasters...

[Dave Farber <dave () farber net>]

Begin forwarded message:

> From: Tim Pozar <pozar () lns com>
> Date: December 28, 2009 4:47:32 PM EST
> To: 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 and
> watched 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  
> up
> the 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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