The FCC regulates all communications to or from the US, including TV, radio, satellite, cable, and telegraph. It was created in 1934 and is governed by five commissioners appointed by the President. Its primary power is to renew or refuse broadcast licenses, but its control has decreased with the rise of cable and satellite TV. The FCC also established guidelines for public stations and regulates radio stations more strictly than TV.
The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) is a United States agency charged with regulating essentially all communications to or from the United States. This means that the FCC is responsible for the administration of television and radio broadcasting, satellite and cable broadcasting, and telegraph communications. The FCC was created as a direct successor to the Federal Radio Commission, the federal body responsible for radio communications in the United States. With the advent of television, it was evident that a body with a broader mission would be needed, and it made sense to group a number of similar tasks under one umbrella. Congress created the FCC with the Communications Act of 1934.
The FCC is governed by five commissioners directly appointed by the President of the United States. No more than three of these commissioners can belong to the same political party, a stipulation intended to prevent the FCC from becoming too much the wing of a specific party’s politics. Each member of the commission is appointed for a five-year term.
The FCC’s primary power comes from its ability to renew or refuse to renew licenses to broadcast stations. In an earlier era of television, this allowed the FCC to pretty strongly dictate what content was and wasn’t appropriate for broadcast. However, since the advent of cable and satellite television – two areas over which the FCC does not have equal powers – this has become less important. While the FCC still occasionally fines affiliate networks for violating its content guidelines — as in the infamous indecent fine on Janet Jackson during Superbowl XXXVIII — they seem less inclined to exercise this power than in the past.
Prior to the 1980s, the FCC also established a series of guidelines intended to maintain public stations as vessels primarily for the public good. A certain amount of hours of each broadcast day was required to be devoted to non-entertainment programming, such as educational programs or news. Monopoly rules were also historically much stricter, and as they were relaxed during the Regan administration, a number of affiliates were bought out by larger companies, significantly reducing programming diversity.
The FCC also regulates radio stations and uses its powers much more in this area than in television. The FCC filed a series of lewd acts cases against radio stations for broadcasting material that the commission deemed inappropriate for the public airwaves. With the rise of satellite radio stations, however, it is likely that the FCC’s control over radio will fade in much the same way it has over television.
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