Opinion ID: 283109
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: The Commission's authority over broadcast content in general

Text: 53 Nothing in the Communications Act of 1934 41 expressly grants the Commission any general authority over programming. The most relevant provisions go no further than to authorize it to grant and renew broadcast licenses according to the dictates of the 'public interest, convenience, and necessity.' 42 A case could be made, as an abstract proposition, that this licensing power is limited to policing the traffic over the airwaves to prevent interference between stations and perhaps to assure a minimum level of technical competence. If the question were res nova, that case would receive substantial support from the Supreme Court decisions requiring a clear mandate for regulatory activity which brushes closely against sensitive constitutional areas. 43 54 But the argument was in fact made and rejected long ago in National Broadcasting Company v. United States. 44 Justice Frankfurter, speaking for the Court, said in part: 55 'An important element of public interest and convenience affecting the issue of a license is the ability of the licensee to render the best practicable service to the community reached by his broadcasts.' Federal Communications Comm. v. Sanders Bros. Radio Station, 309 U.S. 470, 475, 60 S.Ct. 693, 697, 84 L.Ed. 869, 1037. The Commission's licensing function cannot be discharged, therefore, merely be finding that there are no technological objections to the granting of a license. If the criterion of 'public interest' were limited to such matters, how could the Commission choose between two applicants for the same facilities, each of whom is financially and technically qualified to operate a station? Since the very inception of federal regulation by radio, comparative considerations as to the services to be rendered have governed the application of the standard of 'public interest, convenience, or necessity.'   The avowed aim of the Communications Act of 1934 was to secure the maximum benefits of radio to all the people of the United States. To that end Congress endowed the Communications Commission with comprehensive powers to promote and realize the vast potentialities of radio.    56 These provisions, individually and in the aggregate, preclude the notion that the Commission is empowered to deal only with technical and engineering impediments to the 'larger and more effective use of radio in the public interest.' 45 57 In fact, neither courts nor Commission have thought it had to make its decisions among competing applicants blindfolded to the content of their programs. 46 Both the old Radio Commission and the FCC have likewise refused to renew licenses on the basis of past programming not in the public interest, 47 and this Court affirmed such a refusal as long ago as 1931. 48 If agency power to designate programming 'not in the public interest' is a slippery slope, the Commission and the courts started down it too long ago to go back to the top now unless Congress or the Constitution sends them. But Congress has apparently specifically endorsed this understanding of the public interest. 49 And whatever the limits imposed by the First Amendment, we do not think it requires eradicating every trace of a programming component from the public interest standard. 50 58 The power to refuse a license on grounds of past or proposed programming necessarily entails some power to define the stations' public interest obligations with respect to programming. It is this power to specify material which the public interest requires or forbids to be broadcast that carries the seeds of the general authority to censor denied by the Communications Act 51 and the First Amendment alike. But elementary canons of administrative and constitutional law prevent the Commission from terminating a license without giving reasons or from condemning a station's overall programming as inimical to the public interest without identifying the offending material and particularizing the public interest. And if the Commission must explain its view of the public interest when it denies or revokes a license, it may surely give advance notice of its views by way of an official ruling which is subject to judicial review. Indeed, in some cases fairness to the stations may require some advance warning of their responsibilities. 59 Thus, in applying the public interest standard to programming, the Commission walks a tightrope between saying too much and saying too little. In most areas it has resolved this dilemma by imposing only general affirmative duties-- e.g., to strike a balance between the various interests of the community, 52 or to provide a reasonable amount of time for the presentation of programs devoted to the discussion of public issues. 53 The licensee has broad discretion in giving specific content to these duties, and on application for renewal of a license it is understood the Commission will focus on his overall performance and good faith rather than on specific errors it may find him to have made. 54 In practice, the Commission rarely denies licenses for breaches of these duties. 55 Given its long-established authority to consider program content, this general approach probably minimizes the dangers of censorship or pervasive supervision. 60 In other areas, however, the Commission has on occasion imposed more specific duties or found specific programs or advertisements to be contrary to the public interest. 56 Such rulings must be closely scrutinized lest they carry the Commission too far in the direction of the forbidden censorship. But particularity is not in itself a vice; indeed, in some circumstances it may serve to limit an otherwise impermissibly broad intrusion upon a licensee's individual responsibility for programming. 61