JUSTICES: CABLE MUST AIR LOCAL TV.Byline: The New York New York, state, United States New York, Middle Atlantic state of the United States. It is bordered by Vermont, Massachusetts, Connecticut, and the Atlantic Ocean (E), New Jersey and Pennsylvania (S), Lakes Erie and Ontario and the Canadian province of Times A divided Supreme Court awarded a major economic and political victory to the broadcast television industry Monday by upholding a federal law that requires cable television systems to carry the signals of local over-the-air broadcast stations. The 5-4 decision, with a majority opinion by Justice Anthony M. Kennedy and a crucial concurring con·cur intr.v. con·curred, con·cur·ring, con·curs 1. To be of the same opinion; agree: concurred on the issue of preventing crime. See Synonyms at assent. 2. vote by Justice Stephen G. Breyer, rejected the cable industry's argument that the 1992 law was an unconstitutional intrusion on cable operators' editorial autonomy, a form of government-compelled speech that violates the First Amendment. But Monday's ruling focused less on free speech issues than on supporting the right of Congress to judge what approach would best ensure a competitive communications marketplace. And the ruling means that even with the prospect of new competition from satellite television and other technologies, federal regulators can continue to treat cable operators as local monopolies A Local monopoly is a locally efficient monopoly or government monopoly. See also Legal monopoly that control the public's access to television programming. Kennedy said that in imposing the ``must carry'' requirement after years of hearings and debate, Congress had acquired sufficient evidence that cable systems had both the economic motive and the practical ability to inflict serious economic injury on broadcast stations simply by refusing to carry their signals into the 60 percent of American homes For the American mortgage lender, see . The American Home is a center of intercultural exchange located in Vladimir, Russia. The home is designed to model a typical American suburban home and its main focus is the ESL school that provides lessons for Russian students. that are wired for cable. As to whether local broadcasters would suffer economic harm if the must-carry law was overturned, the evidence was less than conclusive and was subject to conflicting interpretations, Kennedy wrote. But, he wrote, ``we are not at liberty to substitute our judgment for the reasonable conclusion of a legislative body.'' Typically, households that subscribe to Verb 1. subscribe to - receive or obtain regularly; "We take the Times every day" subscribe, take buy, purchase - obtain by purchase; acquire by means of a financial transaction; "The family purchased a new car"; "The conglomerate acquired a new company"; cable do not have aerial antennae for receiving over-the-air signals from local broadcast stations. Congress passed the must-carry law in an effort to ensure that the broadcast stations could be viewed on cable subscribers' television sets. The law requires cable systems with more than 12 channels to reserve one-third of their channels for the retransmission Retransmission might refer to:
Because the must-carry rule has been in effect since 1992, television viewers are not likely to notice any immediate impact from the decision. And, cable operators, for the most part, had no immediate plans to remove many local broadcast channels, anyway. The true impact may come a year or two from now, when a national satellite television network planned by Rupert Murdoch's News Corp. is to begin offering at least some local broadcast channels to its subscribers. It remains unclear whether News Corp.'s system will be obliged o·blige v. o·bliged, o·blig·ing, o·blig·es v.tr. 1. To constrain by physical, legal, social, or moral means. 2. to observe the must-carry rules - a technical impossibility, since the 500-channel satellite network could not carry signals from all of the nation's 1,544 local broadcast stations. Monday's decision, in Turner Broadcasting System Turner Broadcasting System, Inc. (often abbreviated TBS Networks or TBS, inc.) is the company managing the collection of cable networks and properties started by Robert Edward "Ted" Turner from the mid-1970s to the late-1990s. vs. Federal Communications Commission Federal Communications Commission (FCC), independent executive agency of the U.S. government established in 1934 to regulate interstate and foreign communications in the public interest. , No. 95-992, ended a five-year legal battle whose outcome remained in doubt until the last minute. The case produced two 5-4 Supreme Court decisions, totaling 147 pages, in addition to tens of thousands of pages of testimony and documents produced in two hearings before a special three-judge U.S. District Court. |
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