Posted by Eugene Volokh:
<i>Forbes</i> and Volokh coconspirator Stuart Benjamin on satellite radio:
Here's [1]an excerpt:
Digital radio promised lower costs, higher quality and more
variety. To portray this as a bad thing, the NAB turned the
free-market logic of 18th-century economist Adam Smith on its head,
stressing the harm satellite radio could do to the listening
public.
Satellite's "purported benefits are, in the main, nonexistent,
unrealistic or of minimal value," the group assured the FCC in
1995. Left free to compete, the NAB added, satellite radio would
offer inferior programming and shove better-quality AM and FM
service off the air. Thus competition would leave consumers worse
off, the NAB said in an Orwellian conclusion: "Adding a new service
would likely decrease the overall service to the public."
"Economists just don't take a lot of those arguments seriously,"
says Stuart Benjamin, a Duke University professor who studies
broadcast regulation. "To be blunt, the NAB has power that is not
commensurate with the persuasiveness of its arguments." . . .
References
1. http://www.forbes.com/forbes/2004/0906/134_print.html
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