Kevin Martin to Cable TV: "Oh do behave!"
Posted on 04/09/2005 4:20:46 PM PDT by Dan from Michigan
FCC Boss to Cable TV: Deal with Indecency
By Bob Keefe
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
04/06/05 8:07 AM PT
Acknowledging that he's new to the job as the nation's top communications industry regulator, Kevin Martin trod lightly on the topic of indecency, saying it was Congress' job to make new laws, not his. But he also made it clear he expects the cable business to do something on its own soon.
The FCC's new chairman warned cable companies yesterday they need to do a better job of addressing growing concerns over television indecency if they want to avoid regulation from Congress.
(SNIP) Tough Assignment
But cable industry representatives say creating a "family-friendly" package is a lot harder than it seems and smacks of government censorship. They say it would be tough to determine what sort of programming is family-friendly and what's not. They also say it would dramatically skew arrangements with programming providers, potentially resulting in increased costs for them, for producers and for consumers.
(SNIP)
Martin said when he became an FCC commissioner, in 2001, the agency got a few hundred complaints from consumers about TV indecency. Last year it got about a million.
Treading Lightly
In reaction, Stevens and others in Congress have indicated they think cable companies should be regulated similarly to broadcasters when it comes to indecency rules. Cable companies counter that unlike broadcasters who use public airwaves, they use proprietary networks and reach only consumers who want their programming.
(SNIP)
"I think it's a very slippery slope to start to have the government meddling in what's indecent and what isn't," said Jim Robbins, chief executive of Atlanta-based Cox Communications Inc. The cable provider is a sister firm to Cox Newspapers, which owns The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. (SNIP)
(Excerpt) Read more at macnewsworld.com ...
Kevin Martin to Cable TV: "Oh do behave!"
The Feds are coming after the RPR's!
Yeah, it sure would suck to have your FCC license revoked for not following their guidelines, wouldn't it?
Honestly, these threats are nothing new. The last time anyone ever meant what they said along these lines was Newton Minow in his famous "Vast Wasteland" speech. He meant what he said and the networks knew it, so they began to clean up their acts. Then he left for a better job and TV spiralled even further down into what it is today.
Too hard? How about just moving MTV to the "pay extra" part of the line up?
How about making the bundles into blocks? Thus news blocks, women's TV blocks, Homedecor blocks, documentary blocks, sports blocks, cartoon blocks, etc. Thus a basic subscription gets you 4 or 6 blocks and then as the price goes up you get more blocks.
With the advent of digital services, there is no reason to not go into the direction of ala cart.
I really don't like this sort of talk. This is the kind of thing that could turn out to create a lot of single-issue voters come 2006 and 2008 ... the sort of single-issue voters that might even vote for Hillary if they thought it would get the government out of their houses.
You take away the public's access to The Sopranos and Howard Stern, and they'll explode in a way they never would even if the government started putting up border crossings on state lines.
The government must demand that all TV sets be equiped with both an on/off switch and the ability to change channels.
Screw Kevin Martin and the FCC. One nice thing about cable is that I can watch movies that I choose to watch without having the diaog butchered by some government goon (or some cable exec taking orders from a government goon). I can't stand watching Goodfellas on broadcast channels and hearing Robert De Niro saying: "Forget YOU!" Ditto "Glengarry Glenross." What next? No swearing on the Sopranos?
"Public airways" is one thing. But I'll be damned if I'm going to have the nanny state sticking its face here. If I want to pay for gritty, that's between me and the cable company.
I didn't vote Republicans into office (or at least try to) in order to get this crapola. This country has enough real problems without the Feds wasting time and resources on this idiocy.
And this is one reason I put McCain worse than Hillary.
It won't matter where MTV is in the lineup if the government tries to regulate everything, which is exactly what a lot of these politicians are openly trying to achieve. HBO, satellite radio, they want it all to have to follow the same guidelines as the broadcast networks.
Broadcasting - so long as it remains a high-production-value endeavor, as TV is and as radio was and still is to a degree, and so long as broadcasting remains inaccessible, one-way media - is an engine of tyranny.Cable is a little better than broadcast; all TV and cable is the creature of the government - defined channel allocations and of the public's purchasing of sets to decode signals in those bands into sound and images. To the extent that we-the-people buy access to those sounds and images for cultural purposes we have a right to expect that the culture will not be assaulted by those channels.
Whoso is willing to be a consumer of pornography should not expect that to be tolerated as a default intrusion into the childhoods of their neighbors' children. Whoso must have it, should have the courtesy to buy it over the counter, not demand that it be broadcast at the expense of my grandchildrens' morale.
You beat me to the punch on the unelected goon squad comment, Dan.
The reason we have the unelected goons in the first place is because Congress has seen fit to shirk its duty and delegate power to those cretinous, parasitic bureaucrats.
And don't forget my favorite show, THE SHIELD!!!!!
Is that you Calamity?......
I've been in the CATV industry for 20 years now I've been in Thousands of Homes seen thousands of TV's they all have one thing in common-An on/off switch.
This bodes ill for South Park.
Me to FCC boss: Read the f%&*ing Constitution.
Well, he might be pretty much out of a job pretty soon. The Supreme Court is currently deciding whether to grant cert on a case with a ton of major, major issues for the FCC. I think Media General is the lead plaintiff.
Should be interesting if the Court takes the case.
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