Perhaps we should have no FCC at all. Let broadcasters clutter the electromagnetic spectrum with the equivalent of pirate radio, until the free market drives out the weakest and poorest, the ones least capable of drowning out the others by sheer broadcast power alone. Then bring in the lawyers and lobbyists to institutionalize and codify the resulting mediocrity so no other media can offer an alternative. Then from one end of the dial to the other, on every conceivable dial, we will have shoulder to shoulder shouting of otherwise identical programming, like we have on the AM bands.

Remember when they first started trying to sell us "Pay TV'? Among it's many promised benefits was "no commercials." But the purpose of all broadcasting anymore is not entertainment or information or variety, or even of amusement; it is to sell advertising time to the lowest common denominator audience. And that appears to be all that it is good for; that, and of course, the self-actualization and enrichment of the petty hucksters and greasy confidence men who choreograph this banal disgrace.

What a shabby and sordid perversion of free market principles. We pay for the receivers with our dollars, we pay for the programming with our time, and we now even pay for the means of delivering the signal into our homes. I guess there was no way to charge us for the ether.

I even have to listen to your ideological commercials on THIS channel. Well that is too high a price to pay to get a simple answer to a simple technical question. I'm switching you off.