Communications Act of 1934

Communications Act of 1934, U.S. federal law that provided the foundation for contemporary U.S. telecommunications policy. The Communication Act of 1934 established the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), an independent U.S. agency responsible for the regulation of interstate and foreign communications by radio, television, wire, and, later, satellite. The 1934 act built upon the Radio Act of 1927, which was a temporary measure when it was passed, intended to stabilize the burgeoning but chaotic radio industry of the mid-1920s. The 1934 act added communications via common carrier and television.

Radio Act of 1927

By the early 1920s radio was popular worldwide. Public demand for receivers was high, with technology available to nearly everyone to build their own homemade receivers. New radio stations were being created at a rapid rate. The Radio Act of 1912 had declared the secretary of commerce to be the regulatory authority over radio, but the secretary was compelled by law to issue licenses to all who applied for one. In 1922 there were five radio stations on the air, and in 1923 there were 556. To avoid interference with other stations, broadcasters changed frequencies, raised operating power, or moved their facilities. The rapid growth was not sustainable. Attempts at self-regulation failed in a series of radio conferences convened at the behest of Secretary of Commerce Herbert Hoover.

The Radio Act of 1927 was intended to address the crisis. The legislation conceptualized radio broadcasting as an industry in its own right, not as a means of point-to-point communication or as a means of ensuring public safety (as did the Wireless Ship Act of 1910 and the Radio Act of 1912). The 1927 act created a five-member Federal Radio Commission (FRC) with discretionary authority, which the secretary of commerce had lacked under the 1912 act. Commissioners were nominated by the president of the United States and were confirmed by Congress; they served overlapping terms to maintain operational continuity. No more than three commissioners were permitted to represent any single political party. The FRC was to share regulatory authority with the secretary of commerce (although authority was never vested in the secretary of commerce), and after one year the FRC was to sunset, leaving the secretary of commerce as the sole regulatory authority. Sorting out the details was a daunting task, and Congress extended the sunset deadline twice. Congressional attempts to make the FRC a permanent body failed.

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The legislation of the Radio Act created the FRC’s guiding regulatory criterion—“public interest, convenience, and necessity” (PICN). The act did not define PICN, however, and the FRC gave much attention to clarifying PICN in the first two years of its existence. Congress did not define the PICN standard in specific terms, leaving it to be defined by case law. The legislation declared the airwaves were a utility owned by the public and charged the FRC to regulate broadcasters so as to guard the interests of airwave owners by issuing licenses to operators who wished to use that utility. The commission was forbidden to censor radio broadcasters but was given the discretion to create regulations and to punish broadcasters’ subsequent offensive actions. Further authority was given to the commission to renew the licenses of broadcasters who served the public interest, to revoke the licenses and impose fines or prison sentences to broadcasters who did not serve the public interest, to classify stations, to prescribe the nature of service to be provided, to assign frequencies, to determine transmitter power, to create regulations to prevent interference, and to set up zones of coverage areas.

Transition to the Communications Act

The transition from the Radio Act of 1927 to the Communications Act of 1934 was relatively uneventful compared with the transition from the Radio Act of 1912 to the Radio Act of 1927. There was already order on the airwaves, and an apparatus by which to administer law already existed. The Communications Act of 1934 did, however, bring change.

Enacted on June 19, the 34-page Communications Act of 1934 created a permanent administrative body, the FCC, at the request of Pres. Franklin D. Roosevelt and incorporated virtually all of the Radio Act of 1927, including the cornerstone principles of public ownership of the airwaves and the PICN standard. The FCC was vested with broader regulatory authority that included all radiotelephone activity, including the newly developing broadcast media FM radio and television, and added interstate telegraph and telephone communication (which had previously been under the control of the Interstate Commerce Commission) and wire and wireless common carrier industries (which had been under the control of the Department of Commerce).

The act was organized in a series of six titles. Title I outlined general provisions, including the responsibilities and organization of the FCC. Title II dealt with telephone and telegraph common carriers. Title III contained the provisions retained from the Radio Act of 1927. Title IV described procedural and administrative provisions. Title V dealt with the range of forfeitures the FCC could assess. Title VI dealt with miscellaneous provisions, including the repeal of the Radio Act of 1927. The Cable Communications Policy Act was enacted in 1984. It detailed regulations for the cable television industry, including video delivery by telephone companies.

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