FWIW, the FCC not only controls the airwaves to make sure that stations don’t unduly interfere with each other, they also control who and under what circumstances broadcast licenses are issued and why is allowable content.
Remember the Fairness doctrine? That was used to squelch free speech and the current FCC Nazis are desperately trying to bring it back in order to squelch the voices of conservatives.
Under what theory of the interstate commerce clause does the FCC have the authority to regulate content or force station owners to broadcast viewpoints opposed to the licensee’s morals or politics?
Like all federal bureaucracies, The FCC is a power mad Leviathan that will abuse whatever authority it is given. As with all such beasts, we must always be cognizant of their appetite for power and avoid feeding them at all costs.
Does the FCC have a legitimate purpose. Yes. Do they have way too much centralized power. You betcha. Should some of this authority be delegated to states and local communities. You betcha. The way the FCC is running its business these days, there will be no more mom and pop radio stations anywhere in the country by the end of this decade. Clear Channel and a few others will have a monopoly on all of them. Then the only way to provide alternative broadcasting is to go Pirate and risk the wrath of the Beast.
I have lots of problems with the FCC, and you do a very good job of describing them.
Allocating the commercial broadcast spectra is not one of them. Calling the FCC’s regulation of the spectra (and anybody who supports the practice) “statist” is, for want of a better term, “knee-jerk.” The FCC needs to stick to what they were created for, in 1934.