The concept of "deregulation" of the broadcast media has dominated the regulatory landscape for the past decade, inexorably altering the range of possibilities available for racial and ethnic pluralism in the mass media. Deregulation has created a regulatory atmosphere in which the permissibility of regulation is judged by whether the regulation addresses a market failure that cannot be remedied by reliance on marketplace forces without governmental intervention. The experience of broadcast regulation in the 1980s demonstrates that racial and ethnic access to the broadcast media is not fostered by marketplace forces. Rather, the decimation of prior regulatory mechanisms designed to ensure minority access to the media has resulted in a market that has not produced minority-oriented programming. In the face of a broad-based market failure, it is appropriate to consider renewed regulation to foster racial and ethnic pluralism in the media. Policies that are likely to gain approval in the current regulatory atmosphere are those that incorporate the rhetoric introduced into the regulatory vocabulary by advocates of deregulation. Certain policies have survived largely because of their attractiveness to majority as well as minority elements in the broadcast industry. Other preferences that are substantially endangered, such as comparative licensing preferences for minorities, may be preserved but are not likely to be expanded. New solutions for minority programming access could include renewed public participation in licensing and review of market failures, public interest tax credits, and mandated access to minority elements of the broadcast audience. (Eighty-three references are attached.) (RAE)