The “Our Democracy, Our Airwaves Act” will have a large economic effect upon the entertainment economy as well as the entire economy itself.  The entertainment industry is a key component in our economy.  It was reported that in 2004, there were 1,645,870 employees in entertainment, art, media, and commercial industry.  It was also reported that total spending on the Media per year is about 190 billion dollars. One of the many flaws of the “Our Democracy, Our Airwaves Act” is that it creates a price ceiling in the economy, which will result in a huge loss of profits for the entertainment industry.  This may potentially lead to jobs within the entertainment industry being eliminated. Furthermore, if the entertainment industry loses profits, it will in turn be forced to lay-off countless employees. Consequently, this will have a spiraling effect upon the economy.  With jobs lost, it will mean less money for those people to spend in other parts of the economy, which may potentially have a heinous effect upon the economy.  Thus, the entertainment industry is imperative to the economy, and a loss of profits in the entertainment industry means a huge negative effect on the economy as a whole.
            The market of the entertainment industry will be negatively affected by the “Our Democracy, Our Airtime Act” because it will restrict the natural structure of capitalism. Although airtime is an abstraction, the economics of it works similar to a concrete object such as a car at your car dealership. When the demand for this particular car rises (due to quality, advertisement, trend, and etc.) the price of the item goes up. Conversely, if the trend of changes in opposition of this car, the demand will shift to the left and price will decrease. See the graph below.



The same is true for the supplier side of the market. If the car dealership has a low amount of this car, the supply curve will shift to the left, resulting in a price rise. And if the dealership has more than enough cars than he can could store, he may lower the price of this car in order to sell it--- this results a right shirt in the supply curve and a decrease in price.



The market for airtime, although less concrete then a car, behaves in the same manner as cars. When there is a high demand for a particular time slot, the price of that slot will be high, and the reverse is true.
            The Our Democracy, Our Airwaves Acts asks for the all radio and television broadcast stations to dedicate part of the precious prime time (5 p.m. to 11:35 p.m.) and high viewing hours to candidate centered or issue-centered programming. This in fact will hinder the regular process of supply and demand resulting in a lost of profits for the entertainment industry. There are two major effects on the demand side of the market. One, when the government places restrictions on this major sector of economy, it limits the amount of competition that is necessary to ensure high profits and good quality.  The participants making up the demand side of the market will be limited to only the governmental demand. There are fewer amounts of demanders competing for a higher price. Less participants in the demand side causes the demand curve to shift to the left—the price will decrease, causing a lost in profit.



The pool of demander will greatly decrease by reducing all the available buyers of airtime to only political candidates. This eliminates the possibility of a higher-paying buyer who is willing to pay an even higher price for the time slot. A micromacism results for the candidate because of this limitation. An important, highly sought after time period (prime time) is taken away from the norm market and placed in a special market where it is not expected for the market to strive. This will result in a profit lost for the radio and TV broadcast stations.
            The second way the market of entertainment industry is going to be restrained is by the price ceiling placed as a result of a limited market. The demand of the broadcast group is originally any company or organization that is willing to engage in competition. There is a vast range of companies who are willing to spend a little sum of amount or willing to pay a high amount for time slots. However, by limiting the buyer to only government, the demand is restricted to a particular segment. The Entertainment market, for their best selling product, is forced to stick to one range of buyers, the government. This homogeneous group has not have a lot of room for diverse price bidding. Although there are distinct monetary difference in what each candidates is willing to buy, however, there is going to be a general limit each candidate or party cannot surpass which an independent company can have the financial possibility of attaining. So in turn, the media market is stuck to an invisible line of price ceiling due to the finical capabilities of candidates. The natural course of supply and demand will never fully take course.
            The media will not be able to earn their highest potential earnings due the restricted amount of participants and the side effect of a price ceiling. This leads to a definite lost of profits. Because the entertainment industry is a powerful as well as a diverse sector in the U.S. economy, the lost of profits will be devastating to the people as a whole. Profits, usually trickled down to each range of workers, will be drastically lessened, perhaps resulting in a massive labor lay-off. Another quality to keeping with rigorous competition is the insurance of high quality. When the media has and knows its absolute highest potential price, they will lose incentive to achieve higher value. They do not have the need to provide better and more attractive shows to gain a higher paying buyer. The quality control is lost.
Aside from the practical application of the country’s capitalistic economy, this bill also threatens the theoretical structure of the system. The United States of America is based on a laissez-faire economy.  This means that our economy is a free-enterprise system that is based on little or no governmental regulation of commerce. The Our Democracy, Our Airwaves Act goes against the fundamentals of this type of economy. First off, this new bill goes against the idea of competition, which is one of the most important parts of a capitalistic-laissez-faire economy.  Competition is important because competition ensures the best price for the consumer.  It is true in all sectors of the economy that if there is only one company promoting a product, then that product will be inflated.  If there are many companies competing to promote that same product, then the price of the product will be fairer to the customers.  Another aspect of competition is that it ensures quality of the product.  Competition spurs each vying company to produce the best product they can.  When there is no competition, the quality of the product decreases heavily.
            Last point is the government has never been able to have a serious effect on the economy with any of its regulations. Why does the government think that just by placing another bureaucratic system, it can control the relationship between supplier and demander? Ultimately, government cannot eliminate competition, because there is a limited amount of resources for unlimited amount of want. Government and businesses will find some way, perhaps side contracts or under-the-table-deals, to compensate for the watering down of competition. The Our Democracy, Our Airtime Act will not have a major effect on the market of economy before natural momentum of economics finds compensation for its restrictions. The little effects of the bill will be detrimental to the market as will as the sanctity of our capitalistic economy.