Chains Chained

The U.S. Supreme Court last week dropped a blockbuster on the radio industry. The Court ruled that the Federal Communications Commission has the power to enforce its regulations on the industry--thereby validating a whole series of reforms that the trembling industry has fought for two years.

Maintaining that free competition was impossible so long as the big chains (NBC, CBS) dominated the 900-odd U.S. stations, FCC set up new rules (some of them unofficially in effect for several months, all now to become effective on June 14). The most important are:

>That stations affiliated with one net work cannot be kept from carrying the programs of other networks.

>That network programs rejected by an affiliated station can now be offered to any other station in the affiliate's area.

>That chains can no longer require affiliated stations to give them "exclusive option time." In theory this puts an end to the networks' power to keep for themselves the most desirable hours on their affiliated stations.

Mutual, youngest of the four national networks and weakest in big affiliated stations, is most likely to profit by the rules. Under the old system, when Mutual did get a program on a rival network station, it could be--and sometimes was--kicked off on short notice. What the other effects may be is still uncertain. Affiliated stations, now able to pick & choose, might produce broadcasting chaos by greedily grabbing for the networks' best audience programs, leaving poor pickings to the others. Such a development might lead the networks to drop worthy, unprofitable sustaining programs.

The new rules, though they are not yet in force, have already moved NBC to in corporate its second network (the Blue) separately and offer it for sale. They have improved network-affiliate relations, stung the industry into self-appraisal.

But the chains have not yet given up hope of keeping the status quo more or less intact. Last week NBC and CBS lined up solidly behind the Wheeler-White bill, limiting and more clearly defining FCC's power over the radio industry. The Senate Interstate Commerce Committee was ready to hear the argument.

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