[jlarocco]

> >The fairness doctrine was hardly ever envoked.

> I (a layperson) don't really follow this. It sounds to me like "while the rules were in effect, they were rarely broken".

It means that the FCC rarely enforced the fairness doctrine unless it was being blatantly abused.

> Lots of station numbers, run by just a handful of owners:

> http://www.neatorama.com/2008/07/07/who-owns-what-on-televis....

The fairness doctrine doesn't make sense any more because anybody with a phone can publish their opinions to a global audience. It made sense at the time because media was centrally controlled and very expensive to produce.