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  The Society for Consumer Advocates and Mavens

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RADIO AND TV STATION PUBLIC ACCESS

Stations may claim they operate in the public interest but just try and buy advertising airtime on a station for any subject deemed controversial by station management that has to do with animal rights or is anti-commercial culture, anti-consumption or anti-advertising in nature and odds are you may not be allowed to buy advertising airtime there.

Broadcasters are legally entitled to air what they want without government interferrence and can essentially ban and censor any idea or advertiser they or the station's advertisers do not agree with! This makes it the broadcasters' airwaves and not always the public's airwaves.

Broadcasters can, in effect, avoid anything they so desire yet get away with promoting as much unhealthy greed and consumerism as they want. They can also refuse to sell commercial airtime to U.S. citizens who want to air their own messages even though supposedly it is still the public's airwaves!

Critics charge that instead of hearing about big businesses' destructive obsession with consuming, growth and development, broadcasters relentlessly allow others to encourage us to buy, buy, buy and consume more, more, more! It is money in the broadcasters' pockets.

Today, broadcasters exist primarily to serve the interests of themselves and their advertisers. Broadcasters, especially TV , is like the Trojan horse. It gains access to the public via news, information and entertainment programs then delivers its cargo.... the advertisements!

Critics charge that originally, the public's airwaves were considered a non-profit utility for the common good but commercial, private, for-profit interests virtually "paid off" legislators and got the government's rules changed favoring big business, all at the public's expense. This effectively squeezed out non-profit competition from ever gaining access to the ownership and control of the public's airwaves.

Has the public's airwaves become primarily a tool for selfish greed or educating the public? Some say that turning over the airwaves to commercial interests may be one of America's greatest examples of mismanagement and lack of vision with unknown, far reaching consequences! Pandering to broadcaster and advertiser interests may have become the way of life in American broadcasting.

SUPPLEMENTAL SOURCE: ADBUSTERS MAGAZINE SPRING 1996

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