[BC] RE: IBOC

[Tom Taggart]

To the Congress over-the-air broadcast is a cesspool run by fat-cat  
plutocrats, to be exploited for as much political and fiscal gain as  
possible.  To the bureaucrats, over-the air broadcasting is a dangerous  
idea that should have never been allowed to grow as big as it has, because  
it cannot be easily controlled..

Local broadcasters are only indirectly subject to Federal control of their  
programing.  Granted, extreme pornographic or otherwise offensive  
programing may lead to fines, but the courts will protect them against any  
regulation of political content. After a decade or so of Limbaugh, does  
anyone think the Fairness Doctrine (if passed) would survive a court  
challenge?  The FCC has largely abandoned media scarcity in allocating  
channels to communities, they are not going to be successful in arguing  
this same media scarcity supports content regulations that would interfere  
with political speech.

Despite criticism of off color programing by the major media groups, local  
broadcasters still have Congressional constituencies, even in this day and  
age, that will protect their interests against any egregious expansion of  
Federal controls.

Hence, to the government bureaucrats, satellite is the wave of the future,  
and not for reasons you might think:

1.  Satellite broadcasters require Federal government approval to continue  
their activities, the service is not mature enough for an "expectancy of  
renewal of their license;

2.  All programming is funneled through one central location (New York or  
Washington) that is easily monitored and controlled;

3.  As national services, satellite broadcasters do not have any  
politically powerful local constituencies to challenge or otherwise  
interfere with Federal control;

Therefore:

1.  Being a subscription service, the FCC can avoid calls for regulation  
of sexual and language content on DAB; on the other hand, DAB?s dependency  
upon Federal favors becomes an invisible hand regulating raunchy content;

2.  Being entirely dependent upon the grant of further permission to  
develop their secret terrestrial repeaters, the satellite services are  
easily controlled in terms of political content;

3.  Having just two uplink centers, their facilities are easily  
commandeered in case of the imminent break-out of war or uncontrolled  
democracy.

So why should the Congress and Federal government care about technical  
improvements to either AM or FM bands?  IBOC is a toy for the big boys to  
play with, there is no politcal pressure to create a workable digital  
system for terrestrial broadcasting outside of the existing broadcast  
bands.