Cable Television: Another Regulatory Mess in the Making

THE MASS. CABLE COMMISSION has been building hrarings Fately to deekle what information an applicant for a cable TV franchise should he required to furnho the public. These hearings are required by law so that every internet group, including the general public, will have a chance to be heard before the cable TV rules are sot. The Commission set on day aside several weeks ago, and invited everyone with an opinion on the subject to come testify.

Beginning at ten in the morning the public--from the National Association of Theater Owners to the Students Against Facism--trooped into Galnor Auditorium at the State House to spend ten minutes or so selling the Commission how to run cable TV. Almost to a man they were there to tell the Commission how to make cable TV best serve their own special interest group.

That's unfortunate because the Commission may have a chance to prevent the Federal Communications Commission from turning cable TV into a twin of broadcast TV. At the moment, though, the Commission is caught between the utopianist agitators, the FCC, and the special interests, all tugging in different directions. And the unique innovations in programming offered by cable TV will likely suffer.

After starting out as merely a method for supplying a decent TV signal to poor reception areas, cable TV has become a means for sending up to 80 separate channels only were to every household TV set. Cable TV also has the potential for two-way communication between the viewer and the broadcaster. A lot of people realized that the revolutionary capabilities threatened their own special interests; and that brought them scurrying down to the hearings.

THE UTOPIANISTS, as a group, used the hearings in denounce the present cable system. The more radical among them, such as Students Against Facism, opposed cable systems in any form, contending that they would eventually be used for police surveillance via two-way TV. The other group of UTOPIANISTS saw the cable as the coming savior of society. People like Ralph Lee Smith, author of The Wired Nation, believe that the technology of the cable can be exploited to allow people to have (for instance) the resources of Widener Library available at the touch of a button or to have any number of plays or movies piped into the home.

From both utopianist points of view, cable technology is so important that it requires immediate decisive action. But these groups forget that the Mass. Cable Commission is not omnipotent. It cannot put an end to the cable TV industry, nor can it force the people of Massachusetts to become "true believers" in the wired nation concept. The Commission is only a licensing body. Its power, though not sufficient to make or break the industry, is however sufficient to materially affect the direction in which cable TV moves in Massachusetts.

Only a few of the speakers at the hearings (most notably the attorneys for the American Civil Liberties Union, the National Association of Theater Owners and Union, the National Association of Theater Owners and the Mass. cable operators) realized what practical form and direction the Commission's power could take. The Commission does not now--nor will it probably ever--have the power to rule on content and usage by fiat, as the idealist would have it do. While the industry remains small and barely manageable, the Commission has a chance to force a franchise set-up which will make the cable accessible to the public rather than the special interests.

MEANWHILE, THE FCC is doing its best to turn cable TV into another version of broadcast TV. By requiring that cable operators originate some of their own programming, the FCC is pushing the operators into the same position as broadcasters--controlling both the content and the means by which it reaches the consumer. With the threat of station license renewal hanging over their heads the operators are afraid to schedule any controversial programming which might upset the government.

But since cable signals do not travel through the air or across state lines, local governments can still claim jurisdiction. The FCC has not yet asserted absolute control over cable TV (though it is moving in that direction).

The plan advanced by the ACLU and others is that cable TV be made a common carrier. Like the telephone company it would be required to serve all customers at regulated rates. Without the responsibility for programming the cable operators would be released from much of the threat of government intervention. To exercise any censorship, the government would have to attack the individual producers of programs: and the individual producers would be better protected under the First Amendment, "since they would only be using a regulated monopoly to transmit their information. An analogous case might be that of book publishers and the Post Office. Though never free from censorship, the publishing industry has remained freer of it than broadcasting ever was And so might cable TV under such a plan.

Common carrier status would open the wire to a multitude of experimental and small group services. With their revenue coming from time bought on the cable rather than advertising, the operators would not feel the need to encourage only programming which reaches the lowest common denominator of human intelligence. Even small non-profit groups would have a chance to make use of the 80 or more channels available on the cable.

The special interests realize that such capabilities could change our society. The wide availability of many specialized forty of information and entertainment could well mark the beginning of the end for the mass media. The National Association of I heater Owners has suddenly turned into an all of the National Association of TV Broadcasters The theater Owners have decided that TV isn't so bad after all compared to what could happen to their already diminlshing audiences if people had the option if viewing first-run movies, theater or ballet in their living rooms.

WITH THE FCC ALREADY in its pocket, the interest groups would like to prevent the Mass. Cable Commission from taking up any of the important issues facing the industry. They will be perfectly satisfied to have cable TV take the same road as broadcast TV preserving the status quo and their profits.

The other special interests, the utopianists, who claim to represent the public, are also too concerned with their own pet ideas, TV survelliance and the wired nation concept are problems which will have to be faced, but not this moment. The Commission is concerned with the here and now, and the commissioners must decide one policy to govern the cable industry as it exists today-a means for transmitting 80 channels of information and entertainment to the public. Making cable a common carrier was the only idea of any importance to come out of the hearings. Yet, even that proposal is beyond the present powers of the Commission.

The members of the Commission are not out to hurt the people of Massachusetts. Though they are supposed to represent the public interest, they have little chance to find out what it is. For the Commission is not the full-time occupation of its members, nor does it have a budget--large enough to undertake any detailed investigation on its own.

As the hearing progressed, the Commissioners drifted in and out of the auditorium. After each speaker finished they asked a few questions to clear up some point of another. The public hearing were only a formality which had to be honored. Even if the Commissioner had paid close to what was bring said, they would have found little information in the testimony to indicate how best to serve the public.

Without an organized and knowledgeable group pushing for the public interest, the industry is going to make the key decisions, and the Commission is going to wind up as a rubber stamp. Like many other regulative bodies, the Mass Cable Commission will end up a tool of whatever special interest pushes the hardest.