IPcentral Weblog
  The DACA Blog

Friday, September 26, 2008

 
More Must-Carry or Another Federal Bailout?
(previous | next)
 
The Chairman of the FCC appears poised to attempt yet another appropriation of private property from cable operators. This time the vehicle is a regulation that would require cable operators to carry hundreds of low-power television stations. The practical effect would be to force cable operators to devote already limited channel capacity to stations that have programming of such small appeal that there exists no market demand for it. Now, one can criticize this latest proposal on many levels - it almost certainly is unconstitutional, it is inconsistent with the Communications Act, it is inequitable, unfair, bad policy, and bad economics. But, taking the proposal seriously, what it really suggests is that the time has come to take back the broadcast spectrum allocated to these stations and devote it to services that people actually want. The stations demanding new carriage rights can't, after all, apparently survive based on their over-the-air viewing audience, and their programming schedule is so weak that no cable operator would carry it voluntarily without a federal mandate. At some point, the federal government has to stop trying to prop up failed enterprises. In this case, the costs of doing so are measured in terms of inefficient spectrum usage and burdensome regulations on an industry that is providing a service that consumers demand in large numbers.

posted by W. Kenneth Ferree @ 12:02 PM | Cable , Spectrum

Share |

Link to this Entry | Printer-Friendly

Post a Comment:





 
Blog Main
RSS Feed  
Recent Posts
  EFF-PFF Amicus Brief in Schwarzenegger v. EMA Supreme Court Videogame Violence Case
New OECD Study Finds That Improved IPR Protections Benefit Developing Countries
Hubris, Cowardice, File-sharing, and TechDirt
iPhones, DRM, and Doom-Mongers
"Rogue Archivist" Carl Malamud On How to Fix Gov2.0
Coping with Information Overload: Thoughts on Hamlet's BlackBerry by William Powers
How Many Times Has Michael "Dr. Doom" Copps Forecast an Internet Apocalypse?
Google / Verizon Proposal May Be Important Compromise, But Regulatory Trajectory Concerns Many
Two Schools of Internet Pessimism
GAO: Wireless Prices Plummeting; Public Knowledge: We Must Regulate!
Archives by Month
  September 2010
August 2010
July 2010
June 2010
  - (see all)
Archives by Topic
  - A La Carte
- Add category
- Advertising & Marketing
- Antitrust & Competition Policy
- Appleplectics
- Books & Book Reviews
- Broadband
- Cable
- Campaign Finance Law
- Capitalism
- Capitol Hill
- China
- Commons
- Communications
- Copyright
- Cutting the Video Cord
- Cyber-Security
- DACA
- Digital Americas
- Digital Europe
- Digital Europe 2006
- Digital TV
- E-commerce
- e-Government & Transparency
- Economics
- Education
- Electricity
- Energy
- Events
- Exaflood
- Free Speech
- Gambling
- General
- Generic Rant
- Global Innovation
- Googlephobia
- Googlephobia
- Human Capital
- Innovation
- Intermediary Deputization & Section 230
- Internet
- Internet Governance
- Internet TV
- Interoperability
- IP
- Local Franchising
- Mass Media
- Media Regulation
- Monetary Policy
- Municipal Ownership
- Net Neutrality
- Neutrality
- Non-PFF Podcasts
- Ongoing Series
- Online Safety & Parental Controls
- Open Source
- PFF
- PFF Podcasts
- Philosophy / Cyber-Libertarianism
- Privacy
- Privacy Solutions
- Regulation
- Search
- Security
- Software
- Space
- Spectrum
- Sports
- State Policy
- Supreme Court
- Taxes
- The FCC
- The FTC
- The News Frontier
- Think Tanks
- Trade
- Trademark
- Universal Service
- Video Games & Virtual Worlds
- VoIP
- What We're Reading
- Wireless
- Wireline
Archives by Author
PFF Blogosphere Archives
We welcome comments by email - look for a link to the author's email address in the byline of each post. Please let us know if we may publish your remarks.
 










The Progress & Freedom Foundation