The "Vast Wasteland" Revisited: Headed for More of the Same?

Things change, but still they stay the same. The broadcast world was in many respects a very different place when the legendary Newton Minow gave his "Vast Wasteland" speech in 1961. At that time, there were only three broadcast television networks, cable television was still in its infancy, and satellite TV was not even a twinkle in its inventors' eyes. The "golden age" of television was on its way out, (1) and three of the top ten television shows for the 1961-62 season were Westerns. (2) The Federal Communications Commission ("FCC" or "Commission") had granted its first radio license to a non-white applicant only five years earlier, and had not yet granted a television license to a non-white applicant; that did not come until 1973. (3) The landmark WBLT case--which first established the right of plain American citizens to petition the Commission instead of limiting such petitions to commercial interests--would not be decided for another five years. (4) Today, we have four major broadcast networks--ABC, CBS, FOX, and NBC--and three newer, smaller ones--PaxTV, WB, and UPN. We have hundreds more channels available to us via cable or satellite. There are more, but not nearly enough, minority-owned broadcast stations now (5) and the public can exercise its right to petition the FCC. But rereading the "Vast Wasteland" speech today evokes an eerie sense of sameness. Chairman Minow's enumeration of the typical TV fare of that time sounds breathtakingly familiar today: "... a procession of game shows, violence, audience participation shows, formula comedies about totally unbelievable families, blood and thunder, mayhem, violence, sadism, murder, Western badmen, Western good men, private eyes, gangsters, more violence and cartoons. And, endlessly, commercials--many screaming, cajoling and offending." (6) With the exception of the decline of Westerns, and the rise of pervasive sex on the airwaves, Minow's description remains strikingly relevant. If this is how far we have come in forty years, where can we be headed? And why are we not at least as concerned now as Minow was then? I argue that we should be even more concerned now. There are issues currently before the Commission fraught with such profound significance for our media industries, our consumers, and our country that, wrongly decided, could lead us into a consolidated media wasteland that we could not even imagine in 1961. Last September, the Commission commenced a far-reaching review of our media ownership rules. (7) This was done in the context of the congressionally mandated biennial review of FCC ownership rules (8) and also as a result of court decisions mandating further review of these rules. (9) At issue is the FCC's review of rules that seek to protect localism, independence, and diversity in the media. These rules, among other things, currently limit a single corporation from dominating local TV markets; (10) from merging a community's TV stations, radio stations, and newspapers; (11) from merging two of the four major TV networks; (12) and from controlling more than thirty-five percent of all TV households in the nation. (13) Certainly no issue before the FCC is as important as the decision whether to eliminate or significantly change our media concentration protections. Much more is at stake here than just satisfying a requirement for periodic review of an industry or even satisfying the demands of a particular court. At stake in this proceeding is how the media industry is going to look in the next generation and beyond. At stake are core values of localism, diversity, competition, and maintenance of multiple voices and choices that undergird our open marketplace of ideas. Also at stake is the ability of Americans to enjoy the best, most creative, and most diverse entertainment, rather than more and more prepackaged, lowest-common-denominator programming devised hundreds of miles away from the communities in which it is aired. …