This CLE course is about the laws that shaped electronic media ultimately resulting in the media giants we have today. It’s a story of competing media industry forces capitalizing on the amazing advancements in technology and how laws have aided, but also capped, the ability to grow. We will cover the development of the radio and television industries, the 1934 Communications Act and early regulation of electronic communications, the emergence of cable from just retransmitting signals to becoming the media power they are today, to the arrival of the Internet.

From there, we’ll go to the game changing deregulatory impact of the 1996 Telecommunications Act to the transformative moment in 2009 when the Digital Transition Content Security Act of 2005 required television frequencies to migrate from analog to digital transmission. That set the stage for a “handshake” exchange between all electronic media platforms where content distribution became interchangeable. With that momentous change, companies were able to easily aggregate and distribute their content to become mega-media behemoths with the capability of global reach.