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FCC Delays Vote On Cable TV Regulation
Tech.Luver recommends a story unfolding at the FCC, where Chairman Kevin Martin delayed a vote on a report that would open the door to more agency control over the cable television industry. Analysts say that Martin lacked support to pass the measure. The delayed vote was on a draft report, backed by Martin, that found that cable companies control enough of the pay-TV market to warrant more oversight under the so-called "70/70" rule — 70% of US households passed by cable and 70% of those with access to cable service subscribing to it. The cable industry disputed the figures in the report, and Martin's two fellow Republican commission members also expressed doubts.
The part where the people (by an Act of Congress), *not* private telephone companies, paid for the vast majority of the cable. "We the people" should continue to have a say in how they are best distributed amongst the "needy" (speakers).
"70% of 70%" is a nice way to avoid saying "less than half".
It almost succeeds in making it sound like "PRACTICALLY EVERYONE!"
I respond to your sigs
A congressman is a constinuency's lottery ticket to see if they can strike it big and get their trivial or social crap made law. Ammending the constitution is a bitch and two-thirds so passing blatently illegal legislation that no one will ever call them on because it'll never involve anything that they can be brought to court for is matter of habit. The president could call them on it, but given that the two branches have developed some kind of fucked up complacency over the last century people are going to be basically bowned until they stop electing morally-certain but ethically void people.
Who said anything about censorship? This was a push to get more regulatory control over the cable industry in order to do things like force a la carte subscription options. You could argue that government has no place to regulate private industry like that, but that has nothing to do with free speech or censorship.
Also, the FCC doesn't cover cable-only channels like FX (lots of "shit" and near nudity there with shows like The Shield and Nip/Tuck, with only self-regulation stopping them from going further), in terms of censorship. They cover broadcast channels that then happen to be re-distributed via cable.
Congress can't make it illegal for you to say "shit" or "fuck" or show a tit on TV, but they don't have to allow you to use the public airwaves to do it.
TFA is light on details, but it seems the proposal that was withdrawn was something about requiring cable companies to play material from minority-owned small businesses on the "excess channels" they don't use. Still questionable, but not "OMG the FCC wants to censor my cable TV!"
And BTW, the "fuck the FCC" people might want to consider that the fight here is between the FCC and CABLE COMPANIES about stuff like whether they should be required to provide a la carte channel options. Stuff that the cable companies may not want, but which doesn't seem to have a whole lot of bearing on free-speech issues. If you want to argue that a government bureaucracy is worse than a corporate oligarchy, that's a fair stance, but having both filed federal taxes and tried to get a decent internet plan from Comcast, I'm ambivalent.
They get to censor because of public mandate. It's less true now (although there are plenty of use who don't mind and wish they would do more). But back when they were founded in '34, the general public would have had a heart attack if they heard someone saying "fuck" on the radio. Same thing for TV when it came along. People liked the FCC doing this (and they still to, for the most part, or at least don't mind).
Then again, a great many more people had a sense of decency back then. Just because you can say something doesn't mean you need to.
Why do they get to regulate signals sent along copper? Two reasons. First of all (and most obviously)... it's public. It's not a private channel it is broadcast. Second, just because you receive something over Cable doesn't mean it isn't on the open airwaves for others. That's why NBC still has to follow those rules. FCC is more lax on cable for this exact reason, especially on pay channels like HBO (where they can do whatever they want with a few exceptions, like child pornography).
Why the police arrest you for saying "fuck"? I doubt they can. Unless you've been belligerent and harassing someone else doing it. In that case, you've already committed a crime. But if you just stand on a corner, yell "fuck", then get on with life as if nothing happened, they can't arrest you.
For the last part... yell at the supreme court. Vote your congressman out. Or understand that that was designed to protect political speech and most people are more worried about that and other important uses (like freedom of the press) than giving you the "right" to say "fuck" whenever you want. It's called priorities.
This message has been a public service (something else the FCC gets to do) by MBCook. Mod as you wish.
Comment forecast: Bits of genius surrounded by a sea of mediocrity.
On the one hand, Comcast and their ilk have been dragging their heels implementing things like CableCard and working hard to keep their (in many cases) geographical monopolies safe from any other competition. As far as TV goes, most people's options boil down to little more than an antenna, DirecTV or The Cable Company. If there was an injection of more competition in the market I think we'd see a lot more innovative services like more robust video on demand, ala carte programming options, more and higher quality HD channels, and innovative new services we haven't even thought of.
On the other hand, this 70/70 rule sounds downright silly, as I doubt very much that's the case nationwide. The FCC has proven time and time again that it's an inept bureaucracy more interested in maintaining its own power and relevance than any concern for the public good. Handing them more power is seldom good for anybody.
I might be able to get onboard with something like a 70/70 rule if it was a little more automatic and less prone to government meddling. i.e. Let's say Comcast has 70% of 70% or more in a given metropolitan area--then kick in a rule forcing them to resell wholesale access to their infrastructure to other local competitors to keep them from being the only game in town. And before someone points out it's *their* infrastructure and they built and bought it--they did so with a lot of government subsidies and that infrastructure is sitting on a lot of public land. They only have mini-monopolies because the government has allowed it.
I'm interested to hear other people's takes on the pros and cons of all of this.
"so-called "70/70" rule -- 70% of US households passed by cable and 70% of those with access to cable service subscribing to it."
so only 30% of US household were NOT passed by cable, and have access to it. And of those 30% who can access cable, only 70% chose to subscribe to it. In conclusion:
70% of households can't have cable
21% of households pay for cable
10**% of households STEAL cable
(**=3% statistical margin of error)
Go tell mom! You heard it first on slashdot. The whole industry has been a miserable failure. The size of tubes required to carry high definition content is so large, the raw materials required for such tubes would strip 4 feet of entire Alaskan top soil. This is why I can only get television through my phone line. I only get one channel. In mono. With no moving pictures.
That was the worst definition of so-called anything. Even by slashdot standards.
Correct. However, the FCC have demonstrated a very clear desire to censor cable and sat. broadcasts on many occasions. Concern in this regard may be untopical, but it is hardly unjustified.
Wait, can I still say that here? Oh, sorry, never mind.
It goes without saying that I for one welcome our new FCC overlords.
my insights may be modded Funny, but at least some of my jokes are modded Insightful
Yeah, I'd say we do. Has cable service and pricing gotten better or worse since they were deregulated in 1996?
The industry has had their chance, and they've shown they'll just collude and buy up new companies, leaving things exactly the way they were competition-wise, only with less oversight to keep them from taking advantage of the situation.
Which high dollar lobbyist and party fund raiser would this benefit? And which high dollar lobbyist and party fund raiser would oppose it?
That's our life, the big wheel of shit. - The Fat Man, Blue Tango Salvage
I forget where I was reading it, but it was something like cable TV rates have gone up every year for 10 or 20(or maybe more) years... And it also mentioned the increase was well above the inflation rate.
YA!!! Fuck the FCC!!
I just bought a russian made transmitter (runs of rancid potatoes) in order to broadcast my own free channel about cats. C E T network. I'm having difficulties with selecting a stable frequency (russian letters are funny), so anything goes... (usually everybody's cell phone reception within a mile of the transmitter). The FCC doesn't like me having freedoms, and have been hot on my tail, so I installed the device on top of a garbage truck that does the neighborhood rounds daily.
I just wish the government would stay away from my private business. All they want is to protect monopoly of OLD moneys. Back in early '90s I set up my own beeper service, but got violently shut down. Apparently I was 'interfering' with aeroplanes and police business communications. Assholes. I think it's about high time to have airwave anarchy. Let the strongest signal win! Bring it on PBS! You may win elsewhere, but on my block it's gonna be all cats, all the time!
So they want to force all-la-carte programming, but also force a bunch of must-carry programming as well? Who's going to be paying for the must-carry stuff? What happens when cable companies move toward an all on-demand architecture and the concept of a channel disappears (it is being tested by most companies now, and is how AT&T U-verse works)? They won't have any unused bandwidth, so does it become a moot point?
Are they going to force the satellite guys to do this in areas where they are dominant (and yes, in many rural areas, there are many more Dishes than cable lines on houses)?
And why are they picking on cable companies when I can't get a discount on my cell phone bill, even though I bought an unlocked, unsubsidized phone?
"Well, good luck finding a judge that doesn't run a bestiality site."
The current situation of constant rate increases far in excess of inflation and retarded technological innovation is definitive proof that sometimes government regulation is sorely needed. I strongly suspect that if you were a coal miner you'd be rather happy that the gov't has rules preventing you from working 15 hour days, 7 days a week, with no air filters. The next time you're in a car accident, you probably won't consider that it's government regulations that mandated crumple zones, seat belts, air bags, and other innovations that saved your life. Open your eyes and you might see that government regulations are not always bad.
"We can categorically state we have not released man-eating badgers into the area." - UK military spokesman, July 2007
Except that they're not exactly without regulation.
How many municipalities decided that cable networks competing for the same neighborhood would be "wasteful" and only allow one or two companies to provide service?
Competition = good. Except that it's illegal in some places. I wonder why prices are high.
DATABASE WOW WOW
Congress can't make it illegal for you to say "shit" or "fuck" or show a tit on TV, but they don't have to allow you to use the public airwaves to do it.
Thank you, Thomas Paine. I suppose it follows that they can't make it illegal for you to stage a protest, but they don't have to allow you to use public property to do it. Right? Wrong.
I can't believe this authoritarian bullshit I'm replying to is standing at +5 Informative. Exercising your freedom of speech means something only if it's in public. What the hell is the point of protecting private speech?
I agree that the government does need to get involved but in a different way. Currently to get a TV license you must apply to each municipality for that area. This causes situations like the one I used to live in. We used to live in Northern Virgina and we were forced to use Comcast when right across the street other people had Cox. The key was that the Cable companies did collude with each other because the Cox customers could not get Comcast either. Having price control in this situation would be horrible. My service sucks as it is, what is going to happen when they are forced to lower their prices.
The way the government can help is to pass a National TV license, one license to conquer them all. This would open the door for phone companies(I know Verizon is not a great example but I would rather have them than Comcast) to enter the market and may encourage cable companies to leave their little shelter municipalities. Getting more service providers(>2) to be in one area should be the goal not price controls.
"If you like Battlestar Galactica, you're probably a huge nerd." -Stephen Colbert
I would note that any protest you staged that is considered to do harm to the public interest can be stopped. This is why we forbid hate speech; it generates a toxic environment. Similarly, with airwaves, the reasoning is that because there is a limited number, and everyone has access to them and regularly utilizes it, we should be aware of how what we put there affects them. In the interest of children, for instance, we forbid certain categories of behavior being portrayed during certain periods of the day.
The problem with this approach is that someone has to decide what constitutes hate speech. Right now, certain classes (race, religion) are protected while others (sexual orientation) are not. Since the ability to criticize the government is vital to democracy, we can't trust the government with the power to make any such distinctions. The harm to democracy that arises from outlawing ANY speech far outweighs whatever harm that speech could cause by being heard.
You can argue all you want about the categories, but it's pretty accepted that environments that affect everyone should have some publicly motivated controls on them. The regulator of those controls, ultimately, is the government. And thank goodness! Because we have no inherent protection from corporations or even just other individuals otherwise.
The only difference between the government and corporations is that government gets to use force. So what you're saying is that the only part of society that's allowed to take away your freedom or inflict bodily harm on you should also be allowed to decide what you can say and hear? Wouldn't you rather have the freedom to change channels and watch what you want?
We've seen the government's approach to regulating "indecent" speech: it's secretive, capricious, and retaliatory. Indecency is used as a pretext to target those whose speech the government doesn't agree with -- such as Howard Stern, whose employer the FCC fined half a million dollars for content that was less explicit than Oprah's. There are no written rules for what you can and can't say. The closest thing to a standard that exists is a George Carlin routine.
You really think this is better than allowing consenting adults to make decisions for themselves? This is the world you want to live in?
So you say. But the thing about democracy is that it does not have to do with what one person holds to be true, or even what the objective truth is, but rather what the society as a whole holds to be true. If the society holds that hate speech is a form of speech that should not be tolerated, because its harm outweighs the harm done by a degree of censorship - then that is the case. That is, in fact, the meaning of democracy, that these values are decided not by a single authoritative voice, but by a consensus.
That's one reason the Bill of Rights exists, and why it's so difficult to change the Constitution. The framers recognized that free speech is so fundamental to the democratic process that even that process should not be able to abridge it -- at least, not without a great deal of debate. But unfortunately, we've had a series of bad Supreme Court decisions that have limited freedom of speech in the name of safety, decency, and other false idols.
Before you argue, though, that we don't have a true consensus; that is a problem with the process and not the result. If your actual issue is that we do a poor job of achieving a true consensus, then wage that battle instead.
My argument is with the notion that we can ever be better off by restricting speech than by allowing it. You can always point to a type or example of speech and say "The world would be a better place if that guy hadn't said that." But you can never claim that it would be better had he not been allowed to say it. The marketplace of ideas is not only a good idea -- it's perhaps the most important concept human civilization has ever developed.
You're implying here that physical force is some sort of trump card. You go on to suggest that corporations cannot inflict bodily harm.
Not directly, intentionally, and legally, they can't. And it's not just a trump card -- it's the defining characteristic of government. It explains why our Constitution was written so as not to give rights to the people, but so as to define those rights which the government does not have. Any expansion of those powers is a step toward tyranny.
The truth of the matter is that people's freedom is constrained a great many ways, and that corporations have access to a large number of those ways, just as the government does. Nevermind pollutants, corporations decide who has the right to health care in this country and who does not.
I'd argue that the free market decides, which means we collectively decide -- very democratic, you'll notice -- but the system does have its flaws. Most of those flaws come from excessive government interference in the market. I could get cheaper health care, for example, if my doctor didn't need the government's authorization to practice medicine, because there would be more doctors to choose among, and thus more competition. As long as I trust his credentials, and I (or my insurance provider) am willing to pay what he asks, why should either of us need to ask permission?
Why is iTunes doing so well except that it offers the option of watching what it is you want to watch? You cannot claim cable companies are providing that same degree of freedom; and there is mounting evidence they collude to keep you from actual freedom on these counts.
Again, they are able to collude only because of an artificial scarcity imposed by the government and by the physicalities of delivering cable service. The internet goes a long way toward eliminating that scarcity (as you point out with your iTunes example). In a free market, collusion is punished by competition from new entrants.
The world I want to live in allows consenting adults whatever freedoms do not infringe on others'. But it also looks out for people whom are not consenting. Children
So would a free market health system work better? I suggest no: most people are not equipped to have a good idea whether a doctor is good, or a total quack. This is the problem with any expert. If you don't know as much as you need to, it's unlikely you're going to have a good handle on how good they are. And thus, we need a third-party non-invested source to give us the skinny.
I agree. But why should that source be the government? Why couldn't there be multiple private certifying agencies in competition with each other? You seem to value consensus, so why do you insist that all doctors be certified by one central agency? (If that's not what you're insisting, I apologize.)
Should it cost a lot for doctors to get licensed? Yes, because they're important, and it's important that we make sure they're good.
Broken record here, but it should cost a lot only if the market places a high value on that service.
You are, of course, free to get your health care from an unlicensed quack. But the government can't allow such people to mix in with doctors they are signing off on; the harm there is obvious and great.
But that's just my point: I'm not free to get my health care from an unlicensed person, quack or not. You can go to prison for practicing medicine without a license, unless you stick to a small list of allowed procedures. I'm not saying the government shouldn't endorse doctors and medical schools -- just that it shouldn't be the only authority, and that I should be able to value that endorsement as I see fit (or even ignore it entirely).
Arguing the public airwaves aren't a commons issue is different, though. I expect that 20 years this will be a moot point, but as it stands now, yes, you can totally turn off the TV. But allowing a free-for-all in terms of content would mean that a child looking for a particular program would be faced with a challenge (nearly) equivalent to finding a book appropriate to them in a library overrun with pornography. I may not have a problem with this. You may not have a problem with this. But surely we can see how the general consensus is that it's not exactly alright?
I think the only tenable position is that it's up to the individual parents. If TV becomes a porn-fest and you think that's bad for your kids, get rid of it or invest in technology that allows you to control what they watch. Don't invest in government regulation that allows you to control what I watch.
This is one of those problems that is more appropriately solved by technology and good parenting than by regulation, and it's better for democracy that way too.
And realize that this is entirely separate from whether a thing can be said at all. Only a few, truly maladjusted people think that pornography, say, should be banished. But there is a difference between allowing speech and allowing it anywhere, anytime. The difficult question is how to draw the bright line between what is a reasonable restriction and what is tyrannical restriction.
Certainly -- but in almost all cases, there's a better way to achieve the desired result than by content restriction. Shouting in the middle of the street at 4 a.m. isn't a free speech issue, since the noise itself causes harm -- but posting leaflets in the same street at the same time of night is OK. The issue isn't content, or when-and-where, but the ancillary effects of the chosen delivery method. If I can deliver my speech in such a way that anyone who feels harmed by it can choose not to receive it -- for example, by turning off the TV -- then punishing me for the content of my speech IS tyranny, plain and simple.