FEDERAL
COMMUNICATIONS COMMISSION
11
F.C.C.2d 175 (1967)
December 6, 1967
[*175] The
Commission authorized transfer of control of station WAIV (FM), Indianapolis,
Ind., from Calojay Enterprises, Inc., to Indianapolis Radio Corp., both of
Indianapolis, Ind. Commissioner Johnson issued a concurring statement.
CONCURRING OPINION OF COMMISSIONER NICHOLAS JOHNSON
Programming for the Negro Community
Today, in a Commission action without opinion, the
FCC has unanimously approved (with one abstention) the transfer of ownership of
an FM radio station in Indianapolis to a group with substantial Negro
ownership. I believe this is an event
deserving of comment.
Radio is in the midst of a dazzling
renaissance. As noted by a recent New
York Times magazine, radio broadcasters have "[recaptured from TV] their
old audience piecemeal by directing strong appeals to specific fractions of the
population."
Radio's reappearance in this new guise brings great
promise and, some fear, some problems as well.
Both promise and problems are illuminated by the present case.
In this proceeding, the owners of Calojay,
Enterprises, Inc., licensee of station WAIV-FM of Indianapolis, have asked the
FCC's permission to sell their stock to Indianapolis Radio Corp. WAIV-FM
presently uses a "classical" format; 95 percent of its broadcast time
is devoted to classical music and commentary upon it. Remaining time is devoted to news commentaries and discussion
programs having to do with the fine arts.
No other Indianapolis station boasts such a format or appeals
specifically to WAIV's audience.
The buyers propose to convert WAIV into a medium
for the area's Negro community. Eighty
percent of its time will be devoted to contemporary popular music, mostly
rhythm and blues; the rest will be news and public-affairs programs, with
emphasis on topics of special interest to the Negro community, including
regular features honoring citizens who have made outstanding contributions to
the community, listing equal opportunity employers, and promoting interest in
new career fields. Unlike most
metropolitan areas of its size (total
[*176] population is 500,000, of which over 20 percent are nonwhite),
Indianapolis has no Negro-oriented station at present.
The president and largest shareholder in the new
corporation is himself a leader of the city's Negro community, as is one of the
other co-owners. Both are members of numerous
public and private organizations, including the U.S. Commission on Civil
Rights, Community Action Against Poverty, the N.A.A.C.P., and the Urban
League. The fact that Negroes will own
and operate the new WAIV provides us with some more assurance than we might
otherwise have that its promise to serve the Negro community will be well
fulfilled. (In this regard, it may be
worth noting that of the approximately 7,000 radio and television stations in
the United States, and the 350 "Negro-oriented" radio stations, all
but approximately five are owned by whites.)
In effect, we are being asked to approve a
transaction which would deprive Indianapolis of its only "highbrow"
radio station, and provide it with its first and only "soul" station
-- in this case a station with substantial Negro ownership. We have decided to permit the requested
change to take place.
We have made this complex social decision --
resting ultimately on value judgments -- by deferring to the market. The transferees think WAIV-FM is worth more
as a servant of the Negro community than the transferors think it worth as a
servant of aficionados of classical music and criticism.
In this case, we believe, the market's decision is
supported by sound considerations of policy.
NBC News, in its courageous and constructive documentary analysis of the
Detroit riot, "Summer 1967: What We Learned," ventured its belief
that "the greatest single need in America today is for communication
between blacks and whites." No instrument -- at least none which is
readily at hand -- offers more potential for serving that need than radio.
A recent study showed that all ghetto homes harbor
at least one radio receiver and many contain two or more, but that fewer than
one in seven receive a daily or even a weekly newspaper. It, therefore, matters greatly to the
residents of the ghetto what kinds of information and entertainment can be
obtained by the flick of a radio's dial. Indianapolis, like all other major
urban centers in the North, teems with newcomers from the rural South, where
the machine has displaced traditional farming methods. These new citizens have pressing needs which
our communications system must serve -- a need to get access to information
about their environment; a need to air their views about the problems besetting
them as they seek to adjust; and a need, perhaps more important than any other,
simply to enjoy a sense of participation, to find in the media of communication
through which they relate to the northern metropolis a reflection of their
interests, tastes, and values.
A radio station with programming aimed at the Negro
community in its coverage area -- if it is properly managed -- can serve these
basic needs. For every metropolitan
region, such stations hold out the potential to become invaluable instruments
in the struggle to integrate peacefully its white and Negro communities.
[*177] The case to the contrary has been made. It has been urged that
"Negro-oriented" stations help to seal off the black community from
the rest of society, that they intensify cultural differences between the
races, and reduce the occasions when communication is possible. See, e.g., Berkman, "The Segregated
Medium," Columbia Journalism Review, fall 1966, page 29. However academic the issue may be (some 350
"soul" stations already serve virtually every urban center), it
deserves to be addressed.
The Negro-oriented station is unlikely to create a
wall of ignorance between the black man and the white world. It is only one voice -- in an environment where
virtually all other stimuli originate in and reflect the white community. Indeed, the danger may be not that the Negro
has too little communication with the white world, but that he has too much --
too much communication which goes in one direction only. It is a society dominated by such media
which produced such novels by Negro authors as "Invisible Man" and
"Nobody Knows My Name." Robert Conot, "Rivers of Blood, Years of
Darkness," quoted a Watts Negro as saying, after the riots, "You're
nobody till someone talks about you!" As countless observers have
emphasized, the desperation and outrage shattering the peace of America's
summers in the seventh decade of the 20th century is born most of all of a loss
of identity, of dignity, of self-confidence.
On balance, the fracturing of radio's audience has
been a lucky break for America.
Contrast the case of television.
TV's responsiveness to the needs and interests of the Negro community is
dependent almost exclusively on the sense of responsibility of white stations'
broadcast owners and managers, and in part on the secondary influences of
public pressure and governmental dissatisfaction. Despite increasing concern on the part of responsible leaders of
the broadcast community to date the judgment would [**7] have to be that the
pressures of the market have exerted a more beneficial influence on radio's
product than have the pressures of conscience upon the product of
television. A glance at the program
formats and employment rolls of virtually any television station or network
will confirm that assertion.
All this is not to say that there are not dangers
involved in segregating, even to some extent, the mass media. Nor is it to say that Negro-oriented
programming, or whatever quality or however related to the objective needs of
the Negro community, is a boon to the community. But the present proposal at least purports to satisfy real needs
of its intended audience. If taken seriously,
these promises will produce solid, perhaps measurable, benefits for Indianapolis
before the results are in on WAIV's first term of existence in its new role.