This is a historical review of a series of pivotal decisions that helped shape today's communications landscape, including decisions by the FCC about the following: establishing commercial radio (by the Federal Radio Commission) in 1928; spectrum allocations and color standards for over-the air-television in 1945 and 1952; regulating cable television in 1966 and the early 1970s; authorizing customers in 1968 to attach equipment to their telephone lines; promoting direct broadcast satellites as a competitive alternative to cable television in 1982; letting the market decide the appropriate...

Television is an integral part of the lives of American families. An average American household has the television set turned on 8 hours and 11 minutes daily, and children watch on average between two and four hours of television every day. Depending on their age, one to two thirds of children have televisions in their bedrooms. By the time most children begin the first grade, they will have spent the equivalent of three school years in front of the television set. Violent content in television programming has been a matter of private and governmental concern and discussion almost from the...