Last
week the FCC denied a petition that challenged WGBH-FM’s license renewal
because the station moved its classical music to WCRB in 2009 and cancelled
other music programs.
A
Boston media advocacy group – The Committee for Community Access (“CCA’)
charged in their petition that WGBH’s format change was a …near-total expungement of music from the airwaves. The change, CCA
argued …was done to transform the station
into a full-time news and talk station, and therefore limited format diversity
in the Boston area.
By
declining to get involved, the FCC again confirmed that it does not regulate programming changes. The
hands-off policy began with the famous WNCN, New York case in 1974.
Scroll down to read the
WNCN story and see a video about the abrupt 1974 format switch from classical
to rock music.
DO PUBLIC RADIO LISTENERS
HAVE A RIGHT TO BE SERVED?
CCA
took a unique approach, asking the FCC to …hold public radio
licensees to a higher standard than commercial licensees when it comes to adequately serving the listening public. The CCA
petition said that public radio listeners have a …First Amendment right to be served.
The
FCC didn’t agree. In denying the
petition, the FCC said: The FCC’s Format
Policy states that market forces and competition determine the formats of
individual radio stations, not the commission itself.
Further,
the commission renewed WGBH’s licensee and reaffirmed their 1974 WNCN decision
to stay out of programming changes.
WHEN BEETHOVEN ROLLED OVER
IN NEW YORK
In
1974 WNCN was one of two commercial classical FM stations in New York. (The
other was WQXR, now a noncom operated by WNYC.)
WNCN was owned by National
Science Network and was intended for background music (along with commercial
messages) intended for doctor and dentist offices.
National
Science Network decided to take advantage of rising FM license values and sold
104.3 FM to Starr Broadcasting for $3,000,000.
Starr
was a privately owned company that wanted to go public. It was run by two recent Dartmouth graduates,
brothers Peter and Michael Starr.
Conservative writer and spokesman William F. Buckley was behind Starr brothers financially. It was almost like
family. Peter and Michael Starr were
Buckley’s yacht boys out on the Hamptons.
[Disclosure: I worked for Starr Broadcasting in 1967 –
1969 when they owned Top 40 stations in Kansas City, Omaha and Sioux Falls.]
The
Starr Brothers were under pressure by Buckley to establish a base in New York
in anticipation for the upcoming stock offering. When Starr bought the license
for WNCN in 1974, they announced their intention to change the call letters to
WQIV and dump classical music and air kick-ass rock. WNCN’s listeners were
outraged.
MEET THE WNCN
LISTENER GUILD
The
classical music fans organized The WNCN Listener Guild to try to deny the sale
to Starr and the switch to rock n roll. The Guild filed petitions with the FCC
arguing many of the same points CCA made recently against WGBH’s license
renewal.
Up
to this point, the FCC’s role in format changes was not clear. The FCC used The Guilds’ complaint as a test
case for new policy: Let market forces, rather than regulation, determining a station’s
programming. This is a core Buckley
philosophy.
In
the FCC ruling in favor of Starr and Buckley, the commission said:
…the public interest is best served by promoting diversity
in a radio station's entertainment formats through market forces and
competition among broadcasters, and that review of an applicant station's
format changes…would not advance the radio-listening public's welfare, and
would deter innovation in radio programming.
And this is still the way it is today.
The Guild continued its legal efforts
until 1980 when the US Supreme Court refused to intervene. Meanwhile, Guild members tied up Starr’s
stock scheme. It turned out that WQIV
was a quick flop. Starr sold 104.3 in
less than a year. Today the station is
rocker WAXQ.
You can hear the tension behind the
scenes as the ownership and format changed on November 2, 1974 in this mini-movie
I created earlier this year:
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