A Short History of Hubris

• Here’s a brief history for you to munch on with your Monday morning coffee. It has to do with entitlement ... and entitlement ... and .... Well, you’ll see.
  
  
• I’ll take as my starting point 1934, when Congress gave television broadcasters the right to use the public airwaves for free so long as they served the “public interest, convenience and necessity.” (Pay attention to that codicil; the big Bs have used it brilliantly.)
• By the 1950s and 60s, three big Bs (ABC, CBS and NBC) ruled the nation with free TV and an iron grip on Washington D.C. whose denizens relied on the “free” airwaves to get themselves elected.
• Also in the 50s and 60s, the first cable systems burrowed into scattered communities, transforming the “free” TV into a paid service.
• In the 1980s, the radio Bs convinced Congress and the FCC to loosen ownership regulations, which led to such giants as Infinity Broadcasting and Clear Channel which in turn led to endlessly repetitive, ad-filled -- but free! -- programming across the “publicly owned” radio spectrum.
• By the early 1990s, the U.S. Supreme Court had legitimized a “must carry” and/or "retransmission consent" scheme (heads the broadcasters win; tails the cable ops lose) which forced cable operators to either carry the broadcasters’ (now joined by Fox) signals if they didn't want to, or pay if they did.
• Also in the 1990s, the Bs fought valiantly against the establishment of competition by satellite TV and radio. They lost those battles but did succeed in hamstringing the new services with a variety of laws and regulations over which “free” programming they could and could not carry and where and under what conditions. And, oh yeah, the Bs scored big in the ‘90s with a double-digit, multibillion dollar gift (then estimated at $40 to $70 billion) in the form of digital airwaves.
• In the first eight years of the new millennium, the Bs have profited handsomely from charging cable ops for the transmission of their “free” TV programming; they’ve fought tooth and nail to keep as much “public” spectrum as possible under their control (see the ongoing white space battles); they've sought to extend "must carry" provisions to all types of signals from each and every broadcaster; and now in a twist of mind-boggling hutzpah they’re on a mission to mandate that any equipment built for their satellite radio competitor also include equipment for their own HD audio services.

Say the radio Bs, without such regulation, "The well-recognized benefits of HD Radio may never be fully realized.”

Wow.