A la carte cable prices
According to multiple media reports (the Washington Post version here), a big story is FCC Chair Kevin Martin's efforts to "persuade" the cable industry to adopt "a la carte" pricing for cable TV, in which consumers would pay only for the channels they selected. This would, Martin says, allow parents to purchase only the cable channels they want, eliminating the potential exposure of their kids to channels with material the parents find objectionable.
Let us set aside the fact that the FCC (at least according to most reports) does not have the legal authority to impose such a pricing rule, that Congress does not appear to be interested in giving the FCC such authority, and that industry observers think that market pressures from satellite TV, phone companies, and video iPods are all pushing the market toward such pricing. (Martin's power to coerce cable companies comes because a major deal involving 3 cable companies is pending before the FCC on unrelated grounds and is currently not moving as rapidly through the regulatory process as the cable companies might like.)
The interesting issue is whether the government is justified in forcing a regulatory change to enhance parental control to allow parents to more easily (and the "more easily" part is important) control the TV their kids watch. Parents have the option, of course, of controlling TV in a lot ways - they can simply not have a TV (or not have cable), they can be at home to monitor what their kids are watching, they can make sure there are not TVs in the kids' rooms, etc. All those are more costly ways in terms of parental resources (not having cable might be a less costly monetarily method, depending on what you do instead). Can the government impose costs merely to make life easier for some people? Impose costs is just another way of saying "take someone's property" when it is the government that is doing it. Which, I think, makes the question "Should the government be able to take A's property to make it easier for B to exercise some control over B's children's television habits?"
The answer to that one seems easy to me: No.
Let us set aside the fact that the FCC (at least according to most reports) does not have the legal authority to impose such a pricing rule, that Congress does not appear to be interested in giving the FCC such authority, and that industry observers think that market pressures from satellite TV, phone companies, and video iPods are all pushing the market toward such pricing. (Martin's power to coerce cable companies comes because a major deal involving 3 cable companies is pending before the FCC on unrelated grounds and is currently not moving as rapidly through the regulatory process as the cable companies might like.)
The interesting issue is whether the government is justified in forcing a regulatory change to enhance parental control to allow parents to more easily (and the "more easily" part is important) control the TV their kids watch. Parents have the option, of course, of controlling TV in a lot ways - they can simply not have a TV (or not have cable), they can be at home to monitor what their kids are watching, they can make sure there are not TVs in the kids' rooms, etc. All those are more costly ways in terms of parental resources (not having cable might be a less costly monetarily method, depending on what you do instead). Can the government impose costs merely to make life easier for some people? Impose costs is just another way of saying "take someone's property" when it is the government that is doing it. Which, I think, makes the question "Should the government be able to take A's property to make it easier for B to exercise some control over B's children's television habits?"
The answer to that one seems easy to me: No.
Posted by Andy Morriss on
Thursday December 1, 2005 at 1:27pm
Full stop.
No.
- Josh