Radio and television stations

What about radio and television stations? Doesn’t the government regulate their speech? Doesn’t it impose hefty fines, for example, on radio stations that permit radio host Howard Stern to say vile and despicable things? Isn’t that censorship?

Absolutely, and the reason that the government has been able to get away with it is that broadcasting by radio and television stations, by virtue of government licensing, has long been considered a privilege rather than a right. The real value of ownership that radio and television stations enjoy is not in their stations but rather in their government-granted license to broadcast, a license that can be revoked or not renewed by the authorities. It is that license - and the government’s power to determine whether it should be revoked or renewed ‚Äî that has long been used as the basis for the government’s regulation of the content that is broadcast over the airways.

Compare, for instance, a private newspaper and a private radio station. Under principles of private ownership (and free speech), a newspaper has the right to publish the vilest and most despicable thoughts of Howard Stern. It also has the right to refuse to publish them. Consumers, on the other hand, have the right to buy the newspaper or refuse to buy the newspaper for whatever reason they want ‚Äî either because the newspaper is publishing Stern’s thoughts or because it is refusing to do so. Government plays no role in the process.

A radio station, on the other hand, while having to deal with the same market forces in terms of private consumers, must also deal with the heavy hand of government ‚Äî the heavy hand that can put the station out of business through punitive fines or revocation or a nonrenewal of its broadcasting license.

Unlike the case with newspapers, the issue of what is broadcast and not broadcast becomes politicized. The matter becomes a free-speech battleground in which one side attempts to impose its views on the other side by government force. Moreover, given the life-or-death power that the government has over its licensee, there is an inevitable tendency among radio and television owners to kowtow to and please government regulators.

Therefore, the ultimate solution to censorship of radio and television stations is not to prohibit government from censoring their conduct through fines and revocations or nonrenewals of broadcast licenses. The solution is to vest a full, irrevocable, and transferable property right in their broadcast frequencies, removing the power of government to regulate radio and television stations entirely, enabling radio and television stations to treat their ownership rights in the same way that newspaper owners treat their ownership rights. In that way, radio and television stations would be free to conduct their business in the same way that newspapers do ‚Äî and consumers would be free to decide what to listen to or watch, just as they are free to decide which newspapers to read.

The most important principle involved in free speech is this: The true test of a free society in terms of freedom of speech is not whether popular and “responsible” speech is protected from government assault but instead whether the most vile and despicable speech receives such protection. After all, even in North Korea people are free to publish popular and “responsible” materials. People have freedom of speech only when government is prohibited from suppressing the most unpopular and irresponsible forms of speech.

Jacob Hornberger is founder and president of The Future of Freedom Foundation. Send him email.

This article was originally published in the July 2004 edition of Freedom Daily.