June CommQuote

This month's quote trips us back to the 1980's when Reagan-appointed Chairman of the FCC Mark Fowler issued his famous toaster metaphor to justify the sweeping deregulation of TV advertising that was to follow. Demoting the medium of television to object-status fit into his view of broadcasters as market players rather than trustees of the community.

" Television is just another appliance. It's a toaster with pictures. Let the people decide through the marketplace mechanisms what they wish to see and hear. Why is there this national obsession to tamper with this box of transistors and tubes when we don't do the same for Time magazine?"
--Mark Fowler, Interview in Reason magazine, 1 November 1981