YouTube to be Regulated? The FCC Sits Tight, While European Broadcast Regulators Make the Grab for the Internet
Peter Hettich, 82 St. John’s L. Rev. 1447 (2008)
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Diverse content, that is, the quantity of broadcast content, has vastly increased due to competition for attention of the audience. Unlike Internet users, however, the individual spectator is left without much power to actively promote specific content on TV. His power is to opt out of a certain program, for example, to switch from CSI New York to CSI Miami. The “Iron Law of Television” suggests that a single broadcaster will try to maximize its audience–and hence its advertising revenue–by appealing “to the broadest cross-section of the population, often with programming of the lowest common denominator–bland, uncontroversial, and usually uninteresting.” Despite the use of intrusive instruments, behavioral limits on programmers hardly managed to improve the quality of broadcast. The European tradition of strong public service broadcasters might provide some leverage in maintaining quality; however, governments sponsoring broadcasting are walking a tightrope between First Amendment infringements and maintaining adequate accountability.
Part I of this Article sets out today’s rationales for strong public service broadcasting and tight regulation of audiovisual media. Part II explains the key characteristics and main pitfalls of American and European broadcasting regulation. Part III sets the cornerstones for a revised regulatory framework, committed to the goals of both the American and European legal framework, and ready to face the completion of convergence of all (audiovisual) media.
