Abstract

Uncensored and Uncontrolled

With over five hundred stations, large and small, broadcasting daily programs of music, entertainment, and speech to a radio audience of probably 10,000,000 people in the United States, it is strange that the cry of monopoly should reverberate through the press in any discussion of the broadcasting problem. There are two fundamental schools of thought today with regard to the solution of the problem of radio broadcasting, neither of which infringes upon the freedom of the air. The danger of freedom of speech by radio is not the danger that any one interest will ever be able to monopolize the air. The real danger is in censorship, in over-regulation. If the radio industry is to give to the public the greatest possible service, it must be encouraged, not harassed by government regulation; if the air is to be kept free for the public good, public opinion must determine the fitness or unfitness of those who seek to appear at its bar.