The Broadcast Century and Beyond, 5th Edition

Chapter SIX

The Soaring

Awakening, Rebellion, and the Moon

The 1960s saw the beginnings of conscientious FCC implementation of the “public interest, convenience, or necessity” provision of the Communications Act of 1934, an approach that lasted well into the 1970s. The reasons were twofold: (1) the election in 1960 of a new, young, liberal President, one whose efforts included appointing commissioners to the FCC who held proconsumer rather than proindustry philoso-phies, and (2) an environment in which large numbers of citizens rebelled against the previous decade’s oppression of freedom and expression, with a leap toward individual choice, derision of hypocrisy, and greater sensitivity to the plight of less fortunate people and the will to do ...