Editing Federal Radio Commission (section)

===Responsibilities===

To rectify the limitations of the 1912 act, the FRC was given the power to grant and deny licenses, assign station frequencies and power levels, and issue fines for violations. The opening paragraph of the Radio Act of 1927 summarized its objectives as:
<blockquote>"...this Act is intended to regulate all forms of interstate and foreign radio transmissions and communications within the United States, its Territories and possessions; to maintain the control of the United States over all the channels of interstate and foreign radio transmission; and to provide for the use of such channels, but not the ownership thereof, by individuals, firms, or corporations, for limited periods of time, under licenses granted by Federal authority, and no such license shall be construed to create any right, beyond the terms, conditions, and periods of the license."<ref name="1927act"/></blockquote>

Some technical duties remained the responsibility of the Radio Division of the Department of Commerce, and because Congress failed to provide funding for a staff, during the FRC's first year the commission was heavily dependent on support from Commerce personnel. Moreover, most of the FRC's work was expected to be completed within one year, and the original intention was that a majority of its functions would then revert to the Secretary of Commerce:<blockquote>"Sec 5. From and after one year after the first meeting of the commission created by this Act, all the powers and authority vested in the commission under the terms of this Act, except as to the revocation of licenses, shall be vested in and exercised by the Secretary of Commerce; except that thereafter the commission shall have power and jurisdiction to act upon and determine any and all matters brought before it under the terms of this section."<ref name="1927act"/></blockquote>

Acting as a check on the commission's power, "censorship" of station programming was not allowed, although extreme language was prohibited:
<blockquote>"Sec. 29. Nothing in this Act shall be understood or construed to give the licensing authority the power of censorship over the radio communications or signals transmitted by any radio station, and no regulation or condition shall be promulgated or fixed by the licensing authority which shall interfere with the right of free speech by means of radio communications. No person within the jurisdiction of the United States shall utter any obscene, indecent, or profane language by means of radio communication."<ref name="1927act"/></blockquote>

However, the "public interest, convenience, or necessity" standard allowed the Commission to take into consideration program content when renewing licenses, and the ability to take away a license provided some degree of content control. This allowed the FRC to crack down on "vulgar" language — for example the profanity-filled rants of [[William K. Henderson]] on [[KWKH]] in Shreveport, Louisiana.<ref name="smead">[https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=uc1.b000263199&view=1up&seq=27 ''Freedom of Speech by Radio and Television''] by Elmer E. Smead, 1959, page 6.</ref>  But it also led to [[First Amendment to the United States Constitution|First Amendment]] free speech disputes over the appropriateness of some FRC actions.

A forerunner of the FCC's later "[[equal-time rule]]" required stations to give equal opportunities for political candidates:
<blockquote>"Sec 18. If any licensee shall permit any person who is a legally qualified candidate for any public office to use a broadcasting station, he shall afford equal opportunities to all other such candidates for that office in the use of such broadcasting station, and the licensing authority shall make rules and regulations to carry this provision into effect: Provided, That such licensee shall have no power of censorship over the material broadcast under the provisions of this paragraph. No obligation is hereby imposed upon any licensee to allow the use of its station by any such candidate."<ref name="1927act"/></blockquote>

The Radio Act of 1927 did not authorize the Federal Radio Commission to make any rules regulating [[Radio advertisement|advertising]], although section 19 required advertisers to properly identify themselves.<ref name="1927act"/> There was almost no mention of the radio networks — notably the [[NBC|National Broadcasting Company]] (NBC) and, a bit later the [[CBS|Columbia Broadcasting System]]) (CBS) — that were in the process of dominating broadcasting, other than a statement in section 3 that "The Commission shall have the authority to make special regulations applicable to stations engaged in chain broadcasting".<ref name="1927act"/>

In early 1928 it became clear that the FRC needed more than a single year to perform its tasks, and its tenure was extended for an additional year. In December 1929 the commission's mandate was extended indefinitely.<ref>[http://www.archive.org/stream/radiobroadcast16gardrich#page/272/mode/1up "Three Years of the Federal Radio Commission"] by L. G. Caldwell, ''Radio Broadcast'', March 1930, pages 270-272.</ref>

The FRC's regulatory activities, and the public's knowledge of its work, primarily focused on broadcasting stations. However, in 1932, in addition to 625 broadcasting stations, the commission oversaw numerous other station classifications, including approximately thirty thousand [[amateur radio]] stations, two thousand ship stations, and one thousand fixed-point land stations. On February 25, 1928, [[Charles Jenkins Laboratories]] of [[Washington, DC]], became the first holder of a [[television]] license.