April 29, 2004
As Congress begins preliminary hearings aimed ultimately at rewriting the 1996 Telecommunications Act, one key goal must be cable TV industry reform. Cable now provides almost 70 percent of U.S. households with daily TV service. A tiny handful of companies, including Comcast, Time Warner, Charter, Cox, and Adelphia (the scandal-ridden company that will soon be consumed by the others), determine what Americans can see on cable. According to a recent FCC filing, this handful of companies control much more than the existing TV schedule, however, for each cable operator is actually capable of delivering more than 700 channels of programming.
Decades of lobbying has left the cable operator in control of its channel capacity (except for what they have to provide politically powerful broadcasters). Cable giants get to pick which new national and local channels the public can view. Want to see an African-American owned channel? Sorry. Comcast already selected one (TV One, which it partly owns). A local news service for New York? “Fuhgedahbouitit.” Time Warner already corners that market, including the Spanish language channel (New York I and NY1 Noticias). Even well financed channels such as the BBC and National Geographic had to become part of cable-connected Discovery and Fox, respectively, to gain access.
Americans need to have greater diversity of programming choices, especially serious news and public affairs. Our multicultural society should have scores of owners of programming channels, instead of the tight oligopoly of six (Comcast, Time Warner, Fox, Disney, Viacom, and GE). Ironically, the potential of cable to offer the public much, much more programming diversity was made in an April 23, 2004 FCC filing by the CBS, NBC, and ABC station affiliates group (along with the NBC-owned stations). In a “white paper“ (see link below) arguing for the carriage of their proposed new channels, the broadcasters provide an important analysis that should inform everyone concerned with program diversity--from media “reform” advocates to commercial competitors to noncommercial programmers.
According to the white paper, today’s cable systems can now offer “almost 700 cable channels” as well as a vast array of new video-on-demand programming, local broadcast channels, and broadband services (such as high-speed access and voice over Internet). With more than 85 percent of the nation’s cable systems “rebuilt” to a higher capacity (750MHz or higher), the paper argues that the shift to digital TV now makes it possible for many more “voices” to be heard.
But absent Congressional and FCC action, those diverse and alternative voices will likely be as marginal tomorrow as they are today. Clearly, new policy proposals are needed to create a more democratic and competitive cable industry. Safeguards originally envisioned have failed. For example, when cable was “deregulated” in 1984, a mechanism was created to ensure greater diversity of programming ownership. But the cable industry has purposely undermined the “leased access” provision of the Cable Act. Nor has cable ever fully embraced local public-, education-, and government-access channels (which should be entitled too much more of cable’s expanded new capacity). Now is the time to push for policies that would open up the opportunity for the public to challenge program domination by Fox, Viacom, and Comcast, etc.
The promise to serve local communications was at the core of public aspirations for cable during its formative period (see Ralph Lee Smith’s 1972 classic, The Wired Nation). With new video-on-demand services, cable companies have recently begun to create special packages that distribute their version of local content. For example, in New England, Comcast has determined that its “Get Local” on-demand video service will include its own local news channel (CN8) as well as other selected content, such as “This Week in Business,” “TV Diner,” and “New England Dream House.” (Shows from public TV and a commercial station are also available). Permitting the cable monopoly to determine what’s “local” and what’s not illustrates the gatekeeper function it employs. This must be challenged (as cable control over broadband, which is now before the federal courts, has been challenged).
The public is unaware of cable’s capacity to provide greater program diversity. Nor are most local and national programmers well-informed about the potential opportunity. It’s time to take action on cable TV reform.