[EAS] ipawsnonweather question

[Sean Donelan]

On Wed, 1 Aug 2018, Richard_Rudman wrote:
> Sean evidently is unaware of the history of broadcaster volunteerism for emergency information, alerts and warnings.
>
> For Sean or any others who wonder where this came from, this goes back 
> to the public service gene whose beginnings lie in the public service 
> aspect of the licenses broadcasters hold.
>
> The phrase "public interest, convenience and necessity" was a key 
> concept in the Communications Act of 1927.

You may be looking at history through rose-colored glasses.  I wasn't born 
in 1927, so I don't have first-hand knowledge, but have read several 
broadcasting history textbooks.

In particular, historians (as well as news articles written at the time) 
tend to point out when Congress wrote that law radio manufacturers 
and the large radio broadcasters were extreme in acting in 
their own self-interest. The Radio Act of 1927 and the Federal Radio 
Commission is often used as an early example of "regulatory capture" in 
the history textbooks.

The phrase "public interest, convenience and necessity" in the Radio 
Act of 1927 gave the government the authority to deny or revoke radio 
licenses. The notion that "public airwaves" were limited and broadcast 
licenses as "public trusteeship" was partially developed as justification 
for reduced 1st Amendment protection for radio broadcasting compared to 
newspapers at the time.

While you are correct from the 1930s to the 1980s, the notion of 
broadcast licensing as a public trusteeship was very strong in the 
regulations and the industry. But even in the Golden Age of broadcasting, 
some broadcasters continued to act very much in their own self-interest.

But in any case, most of those old broadcasting public trust style of
regulation were eliminated in the 1980s and 1990s. EAS is one of the few 
public trust based regulations left.