Happy Belated Birthday: FCC Turns 75

The Federal Communications Commission opened its doors June 19, 1934, after President Franklin Roosevelt suggested to Congress that there was a need for an agency to oversee all the services "which rely on wires, cables, or radio as a medium of transmission." The Minority Media & Telecommunications Council wished the FCC a happy birthday Friday but said it needed to improve its record. MMTC chairman and former FCC commissioner Henry Rivera said the FCC owed a debt of gratitude to a lot of people who had "devoted their lives to telecom policy and the public interest." He also said that the new FCC needed to devote itself to meeting the challenge of producing diversity and competition "in all of the industries it regulates."