FCC Leader Unnecessary

Kelley correctly concludes that there is a “vast wasteland” created by television. But while discussing her opinion, she ignores a few precious details: Waste in television is created by the heavy hand of government regulation and control of the airwaves.

The next commissioner may be as enlightened as Newton Minow or as bad as Kevin Martin. Commissioners change often. The only way to ensure that bad regulators will not steer television in a bad direction is to eliminate the regulators and all the accompanying regulations.

Television broadcasting takes up a large piece of the electromagnetic spectrum. Instead of letting the market determine the distribution of this spectrum, it is made arbitrarily by bureaucrats who are motivated by political considerations. To put wasted resources like these to good use, the market needs to be freed, bureaucrats need to be fired and regulations need to shed.

We don't need a “good commissioner” to clean up television. We don't need a commissioner at all.