Question about television channels

[old_tv_nut]

Radio already had standardized frequency assignments and bandwidth, so it was a simple idea to extend this to TV.

Getting to the regulated status for radio broadcasting was a messy process that occurred in the 1920's, prompted by the chaos and high interference levels as radio grew. Along with banning a large percentage of the tens of thousands of transmitters already on the air, legislators debated whether broadcast radio should be commercially or government supported, whether there was danger of RCA becoming a politically active monopoly, and also discussion that certain speech should be disallowed, such as obscenity; but also "dangerous" ideas, e.g., discussion of evolution or revolution among other things.

Broadcasting is a case where allowing the most-free free speech (everyone has a transmitter) has a contrary effect that no one can be heard. Whether we should do it differently is definitely a political debate and not for this forum, but it is clear that technical standards and some restriction of use in terms of numbers of transmitters is necessary or it doesn't work at all.