The Transistor Triangle: NAB, Congress and FCC

NAB, Congress, and FCC collaborate to keep airwaves a corporate wasteland

By Ben Clarke

Federal Marshals armed to the teeth storm private residences confiscating micro-radio transmitters, computers, and CD collections. Twenty-nine million dollars worth of lobbyists swarm the halls of Congress and the Federal Communications Commission to press for legislation allowing ever greater consolidation of the media and telecommunications industry. After major protests by the NAACP and others, the NBC prime-time line-up is still 99.4% white.

Welcome to the world created in large part by the National Association of Broadcasters and its members. The NAB is a 77-year-old trade association of local television and radio stations and the major networks, which has controlled Federal broadcasting law since the industry\'s inception. NAB-sponsored legislation provides the economic and technical base for the vast wasteland that is commercial television and radio today. The NAB and its members have successfully expropriated a public resource