Bob Kerrey: “One of the things the public needs to understand, it seems to me, is that these companies have been given public…”

“One of the things the public needs to understand, it seems to me, is that these companies have been given public franchises. They made their money not as a consequence of going out and starting a business and trying to get customers to buy their product. Their business began by coming to Washington, DC, and getting a public franchise, in many cases a monopoly franchise. The phone company is a monopoly. It is not a competitive business. It is not a farm in North Dakota or a manufacturer in Nebraska. This is not a person who said, ``Gee, I have an idea. I want to go to my bank, borrow a little bit of money, put a little bit of my money on the line, go into business and get customers to buy my products.'' You have 12 stations on that list on the left. These are franchises granted by the people's Government to these businesses. In the case of each of these stations, even if some of them do not make any money, just by holding a contract with the Government, the franchise that they have been given has value. They sometimes sell these stations for 20 times earnings simply because people know that there are a limited number of franchises. There are only so many that we can grant to these companies. So they own something that the people have given them, they have made money as a consequence of the Government having granted them a license, and now they come in and object, very often, to us putting rules in place.…”