FCC

"With the post–World War II economy roaring, Americans craved entertainment and connection. Facing a flood of applications for broadcast stations and technical challenges to map them, the FCC imposed a “freeze” on new TV licenses from 1948 to 1952—leaving millions of Americans in a television void. Into that vacuum stepped plucky pioneers who devised a bold solution: hoist towering antennas atop the highest peaks to capture faint transmissions from distant stations. From there, they strung wire, pole by pole, down into the shadowed towns below."

"Many of the deals I made were built on the camaraderie of friendships within the industry. When Heritage Communications was the nation’s tenth-largest cable company, it was still run by James M. Hoak Jr., the man who had played a key role in the deal over a decade earlier that created two classes of stock for TCI. Hoak was a Midwesterner who had graduated Yale, interned at the FCC in 1968, graduated from Stanford University’s law school, and started a cable company—at twenty-six years old."

"Stung, I nevertheless wouldn’t let it go: “And, as is usual for them, the price is way inflated. I know I could do it for far less. I could keep us independent of the MCA Octopus that’s been able to take over most television production and keep the networks basically out of producing shows.” That was a reference to Wasserman’s political strength in having gotten the FCC to bar the networks from owning most of their own production."