History of Electronic Media

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History of Electronic Media

The history of providing information has been shaped by innovations and innovators . This paper attempts to chronicle the different factors and events that led to the media landscape of today

Congress and the FCC began deregulating broadcast and cable television in the late 1970s . Describe the ideologies which motivated these deregulations . What changes in the television industry occurred as a result of these deregulations ? Include two of the following in your discussion : Financial Interest and Syndication Rules , Telecommunications Act

of 1996 , media ownership debates in the 2000s and intellectual property regulations in the 2000s

The Financial and Syndication Rules , or more popularly known as Fib-Syn , were implemented by the Federal Communications Commission in 1970 with the objective of increasing programming diversity thus breaking the monopoly of the three major TV networks in the United States : CBS , ABC and NBC . Its rationale was to democratize UHF airwaves making it easier for independent television producers to penetrate the television market . The rules primarily targeted two areas to disempower the big networks : freeing television programs from the ownership of the networks after its first run and the introduction of in-house syndication arms in the major networks . The idea was to discourage the networks ' monopoly on tv programs and restricting the networks ' part in syndication . These steps would substantially reduce production incentive and lead to the separation of production and distribution practices in the big networks . The FCC justified the implementation of Fin-Syn as beneficial for...