November 14, 2011
1. Situation
There is a broadcasting station and they are unhappy because of all the local broadcasting stations it had to offer. They look at all the regulations and the Cable Act and decide that over time they will just cut off a few local channels at a time. Then in a few years they will be purely cable broadcasting with no local channels included. They think this would fly, but would it?
Legal Background
The case that fits most of this discussion topic would have to be Turner Broadcasting v. FCC. This case pretty much made it a law that the broadcasting companies have to provide local broadcasting channels. The Court upheld the must-carry rules, saying they are content neutral, further a substantial government interest that is not related to suppressing speech and are no more restrictive than necessary.
The Court applied the First Amendment test it uses for print media: If the regulation affects speech because of its content, apply strict scrutiny; if the regulation is content neutral, apply an intermediate standard.
Questions
Why was this even a big deal?
Do you think this was the right ruling?
Any cases recently that have dealt with this issue? or is this an issue of the past?
5 thoughts on “Electronic Media Regulation”
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November 17th, 2011 at 4:31 pm
This is a sort of a big deal because it is goes beyond telling a broadcasting company what they cannot air the sake of decency, to telling what they MUST air. There is a pretty fundamental difference in this distinction.
I personally don’t agree with the ruling. Even if cable subscribers don’t have the local channels on their cable stream, it shouldn’t be that hard to get them without it (how else do people without cable watch t.v.?).
I believe all those with a television should have free access to broadcast because it is an important and convenient way to spread messages of national interest, but I think enforcing that cable companies too provide it as a part of their service, with no compensation, is the government overstepping its bounds.
November 18th, 2011 at 10:30 am
This is an important issue because it violates regulation rules that were put in place to protect the general public fron indecency and bias.
I do agree with the ruling because local air time is important to individuals. It is a way of becoming informed about area issues.
I do not know of any current issues related to this but I think this is a current situation because cable providers should never be able to kick off local channels.
November 18th, 2011 at 10:50 am
This is a significant issue because the company is enforcing what the broadcast company can and cannot say during air time to regulate indecent material.
Even though I agree with both sides, the broadcast company should be able to broadcast anything they would like, but there needs to be some kind of fairness for all companies for them to regulate indecent and obscene material. For the most part I do agree with ruling, since the tests are equal to all court cases.
I agree with the above response from troyc, stating that all individuals that have a television should have free access to broadcast shows, since it is a convenient and fast way of spreading messages to myriad amounts of people. Also, I am not sure of any other current issues that relate to this case or discussion as of now.
November 18th, 2011 at 2:10 pm
This case is a big deal, because it makes the compettion fair and opens up chioces for the consumer. Without this rule being in place the potential is there for you to only be able to get Turner owned television channels on Turner owned cable systems. With the concentration of cable and satellite providers that are owned by just a handful of corporations, if this case were ruled the other way the choices of channels on cable systems would be scarce at best.
I do think the Court ruled correctly in this case. I think this way is better for the consumers because of the choices available to them, as well as better for any upstart independent networks, as it increases their chance of having their network carried by big cable systems.
I don’t know of any other case like this. I think that this case basically ended the legal debate and it is now probably a non-issue.
November 20th, 2011 at 9:38 pm
This issue is obviously a big deal as you cannot or a cable station cannot rightfully exclude local stations. In addition to having cable options, there are still very many individuals who enjoy local news. Not only are there shows that covey information from government but there are also shows that have been on for years with PBS broadcasting and such. By cutting out these local channels it could potentially put those persons who work for local stations out of a job. Which would open up another huge door of problems.
I do believe this is the right ruling for the reasons that I have stated above. Its just simply not fair to completely take off local stations that people have been watching for years. There is alot of history behind those shows as well as tradition and erasing them could be problematic.
I am unsure as to if there are any cases that are relevant to this topic. In fact I had no idea that this was even happening. Although I dont make it my habit to watch local tv stations I know folks of an older generation do!