Law Commons^™

Overwhelmed By Big Consolidation: Bringing Back Regulation To Increase Diversity In Programming That Serves Minority Audiences, Caridad Austin

Federal Communications Law Journal

This Note addresses diversity in the media and the need for regulation that will enhance programming so that it is inclusive of minority audiences. It begins by analyzing the historical development of diversity in the media through landmark cases, such as Metro Broadcasting, Inc. v. Federal Communications Commission, and it addresses the consolidating effects of the Telecommunications Act of 1996 and the FCC's 2003 Report and Order. It argues that despite technological growth, the FCC's open market regulatory approach of the last three decades has resulted in a lack of diverse perspectives in the media and that the FCC needs …

Examining The Fcc's Indecency Regulations In Light Of Today's Technology, Elizabeth H. Steele

Federal Communications Law Journal

Indecency regulations promulgated by the FCC used to be effective, but today's technological advances call those regulations into question. With the prevalence of digital video recorders and the availability of television shows on the Internet, children have unprecedented access to material broadcast at all times of day. As a result, the "safe harbor" rationale restricting the broadcast of indecent material no longer makes sense. A move toward deregulation is the most logical step to take, as it would prevent any First Amendment violations and would allow the networks freedom to broadcast material that the public may be interested in without …

The At&T Consent Decree: In Praise Of Interconnection Only, Richard A. Epstein

Federal Communications Law Journal

"The Enduring Lessons of the Breakup of AT&T: A Twenty-Five Year Retrospective."' Conference held at the University of Pennsylvania Law School on April 18-19, 2008.

This article examines the consequences of the Bell consent decree of 1982. In the short run, the decree sought to end the AT&T's Corporate domination of the telecommunications network. But it did so in an overambitious way that chose to break up the basic system into constituent parts even though the preferred remedy was a more modest initiative that would have opened the network up to interconnection by rival carriers. In charting the wrong path, …

The Politics Of Competition: Review Of Clifford Winston's Government Failure Versus Market Failure: Microeconomics Policy Research And Government Performance And Mark K. Landy, Martin A. Levin & Martin Shapiro, Eds., Creating Competitive Markets: The Politics Of Regulatory Reform, Russell P. Hanser

Federal Communications Law Journal

Two recent books focus attention on the role of regulation in the modem economy and the reasons why efforts at deregulation succeed or fail. Clifford Winston's Government Failure Versus Market Failure: Microeconomics Policy Research and Government Performance reviews empirical studies of regulation and its alternatives, arguing that economic regulation has quite often done more harm than good. In Creating Competitive Markets: The Politics of Regulatory Reform, editors Mark K. Landy, Martin A. Levin and Martin Shapiro collect essays addressing the political dangers faced by those pursuing market liberalization, both before and (especially) after reform is enacted. Read together, these books …

Skating Toward Deregulation: Canadian Developments, Timothy J. Brennan

Federal Communications Law Journal

Canada had recently undertaken significant steps to forbear from regulating the last regulated offering in the telecommunications sector, local exchange service. Tests that Canada's telecommunications regulatory agency had imposed were overturned by order from the Canadian Cabinet Ministers. Notably, competitors to the incumbent local exchange carriers ("ILECs"), primary cable systems offering voice over Internet protocol ("VoW"') service, argued for the retention of regulation to prevent the ILECs from cutting price to customers who had switched to cable VoIP or were most likely to do so. We review here both the institutional developments leading to the forbearance decision and a number …

The Law Of Unintended Consequences, Susan Ness

Federal Communications Law Journal

No abstract provided.

The Failure Of Competition Under The 1996 Telecommunications Act, Gene Kimmelman, Mark Cooper, Magda Herra

Federal Communications Law Journal

No abstract provided.

The 1996 Telecommunications Act, Jim Robbins

Federal Communications Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Convergence And Competition-At Last, Antoinette Cook Bush, John Beahn, Mick Tuesley

Federal Communications Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Competition Versus Regulation: "Mediating Between Right And Right'* In The Wireless And Wireline Telephone Industries, Benjamin Douglas Arden

Federal Communications Law Journal

The wireline telephone industry in the United States is the most complete and sophisticated system in the world, built under 100 years of strict government regulation. While the wireline telephone industry was built under a scheme emphasizing regulatory control, the infancy of the wireless telephone industry has been subject to increasing deregulation and reliance on free market forces to guide the industry's development. It has been suggested that this shift in policy reflects the acknowledged failure of strict government regulation. This Note argues that the shift in regulatory policy reflects a difference in circumstances between the development of the wireless …

I Want My C-Span, Bruce W. Sanford

Federal Communications Law Journal

No abstract provided.