[opendtv] News: Barton Seconds Cable-Content Challenge
- From: Craig Birkmaier <craig@xxxxxxxxx>
- To: OpenDTV Mail List <opendtv@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Wed, 2 Mar 2005 06:50:34 -0500
http://www.broadcastingcable.com/article/CA507691.html?display=Breaking+News&referral=SUPP
Barton Seconds Cable-Content Challenge
By John Eggerton -- Broadcasting & Cable, 3/1/2005 2:28:00 PM
House Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Joe Barton
(R-Texas) said Tuesday that he, too, supports regulating indecency on
cable.
He was echoing the sentiments of Senate Energy and Commerce Chairman
Ted Stevens, who earlier in the day told a group of broadcasters
assembled by NAB for a Hill meet-and-greet that he wanted to crack
down on cable indecency.
Broadcasters applauded the sentiment, having concluded that if they
are not going to get out from under content regulation, they want a
level playing field with their competitors.
The cable industry, not surprisingly, responded with a pledge to
fight any effort to regulate its content.
Asked why he didn't support adding cable regulation to the House
indecency enforcement bill that just passed, Barton pointed to the
constitutional problems (similar amendments helped submarine an
indecency enforcement bill in the last Congress). But he said that if
a Senate bill included extending indecency regulation on cable, he
would be willing to negotiate. "Let's see what the Senate is willing
to do."
At the moment, the Senate bill, as proposed by Sam Brownback (R-Kan.)
is actually "cleaner" than the House version, containing only a
10-fold increase in the maximum fine to $325,000 and a cap on a
single incident at $3 million.
The House bill raises the fine to $500,000, but also contains
provisions on license renewals, a "shot clock" for FCC action, and
reports to Congress from the FCC and GAO.
The two-pronged challenge to cable's content control did not sit well
with the National Cable & Telecommunications Association.
"We believe any regulation of cable content raises serious First
Amendment objections and will oppose efforts to impose regulation on
cable programming," said VP, communications, Brian Dietz. "As the
U.S. Supreme Court has found, the subscription nature of cable
service, and the ability of cable customers to block unwanted
programming through the use of tools offered by local cable systems,
strongly differentiate cable from broadcasting, which is distributed
free and unfiltered over the air."
Dietz also argued that cable already has various channel blocking
tools available to subscribers and has undertaken a wide-ranging PSA
campaign to educate parents on their options for controlling content.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
You can UNSUBSCRIBE from the OpenDTV list in two ways:
- Using the UNSUBSCRIBE command in your user configuration settings at
FreeLists.org
- By sending a message to: opendtv-request@xxxxxxxxxxxxx with the word
unsubscribe in the subject line.
Other related posts:
- » [opendtv] News: Barton Seconds Cable-Content Challenge
