FCC Rules the Waves

Since July 1937 U. S. chains have short-waved programs in six languages to nations overseas. They have done so only for good will--particularly the good will of the State Department--not for profit, because the Federal Communications Commission granted only "experimental licenses" for such broadcasts (meaning that the programs could not be sold to commercial sponsors). Last week the Commission issued regulations which put a new complexion on U. S. shortwaving.

> FCC announced that henceforth it will issue regular licenses permitting short-wavers to broadcast sponsored programs. Instead of cheering, the big short-wavers grumbled as they inspected the gift horse's mouth. Reason: they fear that sponsored programs would be unpopular abroad, that their friend the State Department would then sponsor a Government radio station, that a Government station might soon become a rival at home as well as abroad.

> With its blessing on sponsored shortwave broadcasts, FCC slipped in a proviso that: "A licensee of an international broadcast station shall render only an international broadcast service which will . . . promote international good will, understanding and cooperation." In plain talk, this means the broadcasters will have to follow the line laid down by the State Department. To broadcasters who are already used to working hand & glove with the State Department, this proviso was just part of the game, but the sensitive press began to spit and fume.

Said the New York Times: "If our international broadcast programs are to be censored so that they shall not offend this or that foreign government, it is only a step to the argument that it is at least as desirable to censor our domestic programs so that they shall not offend our own Government."

Said Washington Columnist David Lawrence: "So also an arbitrary Government could say that all newspapers which do not conform to the Government's ideas of what constitutes good will in published articles, shall lose second class mail privileges."*

Despite these journalistic fidgets, broadcasters understood that radio, by its very nature, must exist under a tacit censorship, for so long as air-waves are limited, some agency must allocate them, and the power to allocate is the power to censor.

As a last murmur before giving in, the National Association of Broadcasters moved to have the regulations threshed out in public hearings. Meantime no short-waver signed up any advertising accounts, and one even so far endangered international good will as to broadcast to Germany in German how No. i U. S. Nazi, Bundfiihrer Fritz Kuhn, was arrested in Pennsylvania after an indictment charging grand larceny.

* Early in May, in a recorded broadcast, President Roosevelt reminded listeners to 150 U. S local stations: "Aside from some financial as sistance, in the form of less-than-cost posta rates, the Government has supported the press chiefly by protecting its freedom."

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