accepted, even by liberals, as the democratic solution. By the mid-
to late 1930s, the game was essentially over.
This struggle was replayed—in the rest of the world, at least—
about a decade later, when television came along. In the US this
wasn’t a battle at all; TV was completely commercialized without
any conflict. But again, in most other countries—or maybe every
other country—TV was put in the public sector.
In the 1960s, television and radio became partly commercialized
in other countries; the same concentration of private power that
we find in the US was chipping away at the publicservice function
of radio and television. At the same time in the US, there was a
slight opening to public radio and television.
The reasons for this have never been explored in any depth (as
far as I know), but it appears that the private broadcasting
companies recognized that it was a nuisance for them to have to
satisfy the formal requirements of the Federal Communications
Commission that they devote part of their programming to public-
interest purposes. So CBS, say, had to have a big office with a lot of
employees who every year would put together a collection of
fraudulent claims about how they’d met this legislative condition. It
was a pain in the neck.
At some point, they apparently decided that it would be easier to
get the entire burden off their backs and permit a small and
underfunded public broadcasting system. They could then claim that
they didn’t have to fulfill this service any longer. That was the origin
of public radio and television—which is now largely corporate-
funded in any event.
That’s happening more and more. PBS [the Public Broadcasting
Service] is sometimes called “the Petroleum Broadcasting Service.”
That’s just another reflection of the interests and power of a
highly class-conscious business system that’s always fighting an
intense class war. These issues are coming up again with respect to
the internet and the new interactive communications technologies.
And we’re going to find exactly the same conflict again. It’s going on
right now.
I don’t see why we should have had any long-term hopes for
something different. Commercially-run radio is going to have certain
purposes—namely, the ones determined by people who own and
control it.