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Report on Chain Broadcasting, U. S. Federal Communications Commission, May, 1941, pages 88-90:
IX. CONCLUSION
We have exercised our jurisdiction upon the premise, generally accepted by the public and the industry, that the network method of program distribution is in the public interest. We subscribe to the view that network broadcasting is an integral and necessary part of radio. The regulations which we are promulgating are designed to preserve without loss the contributions of network broadcasting to the public and to the affiliated stations, while ensuring that licensees will exercise their responsibilities under the law. We believe that these regulations will foster and strengthen network broadcasting by opening up the field to competition. An open door to new networks will stimulate the old and encourage the new.
The prophecy that regulations such as we are adopting will "result in the eventual destruction of national program service" and "destroy the American system of network broadcasting" is, we believe, the exaggeration of advocacy. The practices which we find contrary to public interest were instituted to restrict competition within the broadcasting field, not to protect commercial broadcasting from competition by other types of advertising. Everyone familiar with broadcasting as an advertising medium knows that radio reaches a different audience from other types of advertising, and that it reaches them in a different way. We doubt that the networks have so little faith in the stability of their own enterprise as is suggested by their insistence that the whole structure of commercial broadcasting will collapse if their relations with outlets are modified along the lines indicated. It is incredible that the industry's footing is so insecure. The prediction that advertisers will desert radio in favor of newspapers, magazines, or billboards is singularly unconvincing.
We are under no illusion that the regulations we are adopting will solve all questions of public interest with respect to the network system of program distribution. For example, we have not dealt with the activities of the principal networks in the fields of electrical transcription and talent supply, although we recognize, as did the committee, that their activities in these fields "raise problems which vitally concern the welfare of the industry and the listening public." The problems in the network field are interdependent, and the steps now taken may perhaps operate as a partial solution of problems not directly dealt with at this time. Such problems may be examined again at some future time after the regulations here adopted have been given a fair trial.
We have been at pains to limit our regulations to the proven requirements of the situation, and especially to ensuring the maintenance of a competitive market. Radio broadcasting is a competitive industry. The Congress has so declared it in the Communications Act of 1934, and has required the fullest measure of competition possible within physical limitations. If the industry cannot go forward on a competitive basis, if the substantial restraints upon competition which we seek to eliminate are indispensable to the industry, then we must frankly concede that broadcasting is not properly a competitive industry. If this be the case, we recommend that the Congress should amend the Communications Act to authorize and direct regulations appropriate to a noncompetitive industry with adequate safeguards to protect listeners, advertisers, and consumers. We believe, however, that competition, given a fair test, will best protect the public interest. That is the American system.
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