An editorial is the expression of the point of view of the station (or network) owner or management. News commentary, in which a single newsperson expresses an opinion about one or more news events, is not an "editorial," because that individual is rarely understood to be speaking for management. The parallel to newspapers is apparent-the editorial page matches what is addressed here, whereas the "op ed" page offers other (and sometimes disagreeing) individual expressions of opinion.

Origins

  Many stations took to the air in the 1920s and 1930s specifically so that their owners could express their points of view on one or more controversial issues. Indeed, some early stations that became subject to Federal Radio Commission (FRC) sanctions got into trouble because of their one-sided approach to religious or political issues. Early administrative FRC and court decisions made clear that stations-as part of their requirement to operate in "the public interest, convenience or necessity"-should provide a balanced program menu, allowing a variety of points of view to be expressed. Nothing specific was said about whether or not stations could editorialize in the first place.

     At the network level, editorializing was frowned upon in the 1930s. Although "comment" was fairly common among newscasters, and some programs of news "commentary" were common by the late 1930s-indeed, the role of news commentator became more widely recognized-such programs did not express the editorial opinion of network or station management and were thus not looked at in the same way by the regulators.

The Mayflower Case

     Any question about the legality of station editorials was removed by the Mayflower case in 1941.

     The Yankee Network's WAAB in Boston had presented editorials in 1937-38. This became a matter of legal concern in 1939, when the Mayflower Broadcasting Corporation (one of whose owners was a disgruntled former WAAB employee who felt stations should not editorialize) applied for the same frequency, throwing the stations into a comparative hearing before the FCC as required by provisions of the 1934 Communications Act. When the commission initially dismissed the Mayflower application for unrelated reasons, the company asked the FCC to reconsider based on the editorializing question. Early in 1941 the FCC issued its final decision, which, while upholding the renewal of WAAB's license, made clear that "a truly free radio cannot be used to advocate the causes of the licensee   the broadcaster cannot be an advocate."

     The commission argued that given the limited number of frequencies available (and thus the number of stations that could broadcast), each licensee had to remain impartial. In using a public resource (its frequency assignment), a station took on the responsibility of being open to expression of all points of view, not merely its own. Because WAAB had ceased editorializing in 1938 when the FCC questioned the practice, its license was renewed.

     Perhaps surprisingly, given broadcasters' fierce defense of their First Amendment rights, there was little industry complaint about the decision. Indeed, many broadcasters were secretly relieved that the FCC had eliminated the editorial option, because they knew that no matter what was said, any editorial could make listeners and advertisers unhappy. As stations grew to depend more on commercial support, avoiding controversy became ever more important.

Encouraging Editorials

     Only after World War II did the issue arise anew. Early in 1948 the FCC held eight days of hearings on the question of stations' editorializing and dealing with controversial issues. From those hearings came a mid-1949 decision allowing editorials, in effect reversing the Mayflower ban. As the commissioners put it, "We cannot see how the open espousal of one point of view by the licensee should necessarily prevent him from affording a fair opportunity for the presentation of contrary positions." Little did anyone see at the time how this decision-which allowed but did not actively encourage editorials-would lay the groundwork for the hugely controversial fairness doctrine in years to come.

     Eleven years later, the commission became more positive, including "editorialization by licensees" as the 7th of 14 specific program types held to be in the public interest. More stations began to offer at least occasional editorials, with some larger outlets hiring dedicated staff for the purpose. But the majority of stations never editorialized, and many others did so only infrequently. For a number of years, the Broadcasting Yearbook kept track of the number of stations providing editorials. Of AM stations reporting (including most but not all of those then on the air), 30 percent editorialized in 1959, and six years later, 61 percent did, though nearly half of those did so only occasionally.

     One indicator of the (temporary, as it turned out) growth of station editorializing was the formation of the National Broadcast Editorial Association (NBEA) in the early 1970s. The association grew to more than 200 members (usually the editorial director of a station); issued a quarterly publication, the NBEA Editorialist; and held annual conventions. One of the better-known station editorial directors was Don Gale, of the KSL stations in Salt Lake City, who over two decades broadcast some 5,000 editorials before his 1999 retirement. Each was broadcast three times a day on radio and twice on television. Ed Hinshaw at Milwaukee's WTMJ and Phil Johnson at WWL in New Orleans wrote or broadcast editorials for both radio and television for more than a quarter century.

     By 1977 fewer stations reported editorializing activity, and most of those were only doing occasional editorials. A 1982 study identified more than 1,200 stations editorializing, many of them AM-FM-TV combinations. But later surveys suggested that the number was both much smaller and in decline. In September 1991 the NBEA was absorbed by the National Conference of Editorial Writers, most of whose members worked for newspapers.

     The decline in station editorials after about 1980 was driven largely by economics. Increasing competition for advertising dollars and the need not to make potential clients irate certainly contributed. The demise of the fairness doctrine in 1987 probably contributed as well. So did the general's demise of radio news and public-affairs programming on many stations. Because most focus on music, radio stations no longer compare themselves to newspapers in their community role. With that change in identification came the demise of editorializing.