Almost every day, something happens that affects the broadcast world. In our office, we are constantly running back and forth across the hall, or shooting each other emails, about news stories or regulatory actions that we think are important or interesting – and about which we need to keep informed to serve our clients. Often, we’ll pass some stories on to clients to whom we think that they might be relevant. When we see something of major significance, we often incorporate it into a bulletin or advisory that goes to all of our clients.
But we don’t always get every important or interesting story to every client. So we’ve decided to try this blog – to give our take on some of the events that we see that are relevant to the world of the broadcaster. Obviously, we write as lawyers, and our focus will be on legal issues. But we will try to reach beyond the legal issues, to point at trends and developments that we see as affecting the industry. And we’ll report on those things that we see that simply are interesting or amusing to those in the broadcast industry. And we’ll look for your responses to our thoughts and observations, and hopefully have a dialog on these issues.
So some days, the blog may just report on FCC actions. Other days, we may link to interesting or provocative news stories that we see in the trade or popular press. But sometimes, we will tackle more fundamental issues. For instance, one of the first questions we’ll have to address is just what the broadcast industry is today. While we could limit the stories in this blog to just matters about the over-the-air broadcast industry, that narrow view would be far too limiting. Broadcasting is no longer an island unto itself. Instead, each day it becomes more and more clear that the world that traditional broadcasting inhabits is one that goes far beyond those narrow areas that the FCC has traditionally defined as a broadcast service. Thus, will be pointing out developments and legal decisions that impact not only traditional over-the-air radio and television stations, but also those in the myriad “new media” that are now so crucial to any understanding of the broadcast industry. Media “convergence,” which has for so long been nothing more than a buzz word thrown around to make it seem like we’re thinking about the future, is finally here, and cannot be ignored in a discussion of the broadcast industry.
We obviously have an ambitions agenda for this blog, and look forward to seeing how it develops. We hope that the blog provides information, provokes discussion, and serves as a resource for our clients, friends and everyone else who is interested in the industry. Pass on the link to this site to others who might find it to be of interest, post your comments, and let us know what you think.