Speak Softly and Carry a Big Stick: How Local TV Broadcasters Exert Political Power.

• Author: Siegel, Andrew J.
• Position: Book review

Speak Softly and Carry a Big Stick: How Local TV Broadcasters Exert Political Power, J. H. Snider, New York: iUniverse, Inc. 2005, 592 pages.

For the past eighteen years, I have worked for CBS. My current title is Assistant General Counsel, and I represent the CBS-owned television stations. As such, I was fascinated by the title of J. H. Snider' s Speak Softly and Carry a Big Stick: How Local TV Broadcasters Exert Political Power. (1) Since on a daily basis I represent our local TV stations, I was curious about Dr. Snider's views.

What I learned is that Speak Softly is an attack on Congress' award of a second channel to broadcasters for high definition television in the Telecommunications Act of 1996 ("1996 Act"). Dr. Snider makes no secret of his disdain for this spectrum award: "I lamented that broadcast TV-whether in high or standard definition--was a gross misuse of spectrum and that it would be much better used for either mobile higher powered licensed services or lower powered unlicensed services." (2)

According to Dr. Snider, the spectrum award was not in the public interest. (3) Therefore, he concludes that the only reason broadcasters received this additional spectrum must have been because Congress was afraid of the broadcasters. (4) Speak Softly consists of Dr. Snider's attempts to find support for his conclusions.

Speak Softly is divided into three parts. In the first part, Dr. Snider examines the relationship between local TV broadcasters, the viewing public, and politicians. He uses a political science model of principal-agent theory. Using this model, Dr. Snider posits that the viewing public is the principal, broadcasters are the agents, and politicians are the targets that broadcasters are supposed to be watching. (5) Dr. Snider contends that agents occasionally have interests that conflict with the interests of their principals. The agents then have to hide their conflicting interests from their principals. Speak Softly examines different theoretical interests, types of conflicts, and relationships.

In the second part of Speak Softly, Dr. Snider attempts to apply the theories discussed in Part I to explain why broadcasters received additional spectrum for high-definition television. Dr. Snider theorizes that if the principal/public had known that its agents/local broadcasters were trying to get this additional spectrum, the public would have wanted to make a profit off of the deal and would not have just given it away. This becomes Dr. Snider's conflict for purposes of his principal-agent theory. As a result, Speak Softly claims local broadcasters hid their desire for the spectrum. The broadcasters went to the party it was supposed to be watching--the politicians--to get the spectrum. For reasons unknown, the politicians were afraid of the broadcasters and gave them the spectrum they wanted behind the public's back.

The final part of Speak Softly contains Dr. Snider's proposed resolution to his perceived principal-agent conflict, among other things.

A major problem with Dr. Snider's theory is that Speak Softly offers no proof that politicians were afraid of broadcasters. Speak Softly calls the politicians' fear of broadcasters "the Allegation--the alleged link between broadcaster control...