This was a devious way to shoehorn YET-ANOTHER profitmongeing station in despite the FCC having long ago designated all FM frequencies below 92 to be strictly noncommercial.
Okay, then gripe about the existence of a "loophole" and advocate for its closure, but don't sit there asserting/implying something does not happen/exist when in fact it does. Surely you aren't asserting that the loophole's mere existence be the reason extant stations/broadcasters don't lease more "space," stronger signals, etc. than they do. I submit that they don't/didn't because they didn't have either the money or the will/need to do so.
(Would be) broadcasters
can't "lease more space, stronger signals, etc". Those stronger avenues have all been scarfed up decades ago. That's why the itty bitty puddle of public broadcasting that made up some but not all of your list, are confined to the sloppy seconds left over.
The prime space is already in the hands of giant corporations, and has been for generations. Even though they all regularly have to re-apply for license renewal, which is virtually automatic. And as long as it is automatic it effectively shuts out anyone else from access.
The prime space is already in the hands of giant corporations, and has been for generations. Even though they all regularly have to re-apply for license renewal, which is virtually automatic. And as long as it is automatic it effectively shuts out anyone else from access.
So now, your gripe is that people who've had the property rights to a given space in the EMS get their lease renewed.
Consider this:
I have a building that has a limited quantity of units. Some units are small 600 sq. foot efficiencies, some are one bedroom units of 1200 sq. ft., some are large multi floor units, others occupy whole or major portions of single floors, and so on. My tenants who've leased the largest units have renewed their leases, adequately maintained the space they occupy, and paid the requisite fees for as long as the building has been there.
Following the implications of your gripe, I should not automatically accept their lease renewal and instead I should either reject it or reduce the size of the unit or quantity of floors they occupy to admit someone else who wants to obtain a place in the building.
While I respect your right to think that's what I should do, I can assure you it's not what I'd ever do.
I'm not sure how your conception of property rights goes, but the normative model you're suggesting doesn't at all align with the U.S.' notion or implementation of the property rights concept.
Quite frankly, I'm glad it does not, but I'm equally glad that you and others like you have the freedom to feel it should. Furthermore, I think it great that you can advocate to the fullest of your ability for change in America's implementation of property rights concepts. Make no mistake, however. Were I to sense that the model you've describe had a snowball's chance in hell of coming to fruition, bantering in opposition to you and about it on USMB is not the nature of conversation I'd be having about it.
Apparently
you either missed, or are intentionally ignoring, the adjective public in the term "public property".
The airwaves, by which we mean the use thereof, is literally the domain of We the Public. Thus spake the FCC when it was formed. That means
we own that potential. It also means it's up to
us who uses it and for what purpose, and for how long they do so. And yes Virginia, that means CBS doesn't own them and ClearChannel doesn't own them and "Power 99" doesn't own them --- WE do, and we permit CBS and ClearChannel and Power99 and everybody else, to use OUR airwaves.
That's a basic fact that can't be ignored. It's the
starting point.
Apparently you either missed, or are intentionally ignoring, the adjective public in the term "public property".
The airwaves, by which we mean the use thereof, is literally the domain of We the Public. Thus spake the FCC when it was formed. That means we own that potential. It also means it's up to us who uses it and for what purpose, and for how long they do so. And yes Virginia, that means CBS doesn't own them and ClearChannel doesn't own them and "Power 99" doesn't own them --- WE do, and we permit CBS and ClearChannel and Power99 and everybody else, to use OUR airwaves.
I can't believe you wrote that drivel. Alas, you did, so I've in turn gotten a "big blue crayon" so I can use it to spell out for you what I mistakenly presumed you'd be able to discern on your own. The only difference in the "consider this" remarks below and those I presented earlier and to which the above quoted remarks are your reply are the blue bits and the fact that I shifted the personal pronouns from the first person singular to the third person plural and I added an appositive for the first person nominative case pronoun. In short, no I didn't overlook the "public" in "public property." You didn't actually think carefully about what I wrote.
Consider this:
"We, the people," own a building that has a limited quantity of units. Some units are small 600 sq. foot efficiencies, some are one bedroom units of 1200 sq. ft., some are large multi floor units, others occupy whole or major portions of single floors, and so on.
Our tenants who've leased the largest units have renewed their leases, adequately maintained the space they occupy, and paid the requisite fees for as long as the building has been there.
Following the implications of your gripe,
"We, the people," should not automatically accept their lease renewal and instead
"We, the people," should either reject it or reduce the size of the unit or quantity of floors they occupy to admit someone else who wants to obtain a place in the building.
While I respect your right to think that's what
"We, the people," should do, I can assure you it's not what I'd ever
our doing so.
Analogical Verisimilitudes:
- "Building" --> The EMS
- "Units in the building" -> Frequencies of the EMS, with larger units corresponding to larger segments of the EMS.
- "The view" from any given unit" --> Transmission strength at which a broadcaster is authorized to transmit its signals
- Lease agreement any lessors sign --> License to occupy/use a specific portion of the EMS
- Size of the unit a lessor occupies in the building --> Amount/strength of the EMS signal any given licensee licenses.
"We, the people" have delegated to the FCC the authority for managing the use/occupation of the EMS. One element of the FCC's
raison d'etre, that is, why "We, the people" have made the delegation, is to manage the EMS so that users of it don't "step on" each other, as it were, to keep the use of the EMS orderly rather than chaotic, which is precisely what it'd be were there not some means of apportioning the EMS to the various individuals and users who want to use it. The licenses the FCC grants/auctions are the means of establishing and maintaining the orderly use of the EMS.
Now, essentially, your beef is that some users of the EMS generations ago leased the "biggest and best" portions of the EMS and won't relinquish them and the FCC doesn't pare down or reject their license renewals. That argument is tantamount to any and all of the following:
"Woe is me." "I, a would-be lessor of EMS space" wasn't around to lease a "bigger and better" unit when they were first offered.
"Woe is me." "They, current lessors of the 'biggest and best units' of EMS" aren't willing to relinquish any of it.
As I implied before, that is just crying over spilt milk, as far as I'm concerned. It is because my notion of property says that once a person or entity has obtained (by purchase or lease) the right to use a given piece of property, so long as the buyer/lessor complies with the obligations of ownership/leasehold they should not be removed from that property.
Now there is a concept called "eminent domain," and, in essence, what you're arguing is that the eminent domain concept be applied to the EMS "property" held by extant commercial licensees. [1] Though in the abstract, sure, that is something the FCC can do, pragmatically doing so is untenable. It is do because eminent domain may not be used to single out specific or a specific class of property holders and deny them of their right to the property they've acquired and rights attendant to that property and their occupancy/possession of it. Eminent domain must confiscate the property without regard to who be its occupant(s), owner(s), or user(s), thus to implement your notion, all occupants of the EMS would have to their licenses "reclaimed" and the bidding process for those portions would have to recur on some periodic basis. (Surely, you see how impractical and absurd such a process would be?)
Note:
It's important to not that I wrote "concept." Literally, eminent domain does not apply. The part of the eminent domain concept that resembles what you're suggesting happen is that of redistributing possession a portion of the EMS. That's it.
