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157  Cable, Pay TV Provide
     Science-Policy Issue
     The Washington Post, June 28, 1969

     In related actions last December, the Federal Communications
Commission announced tentative regulations for pay TV and for cable
channels (CATV).  The guidelines for cable systems have since been
the subject of discussion, marked by partial agreements recently among
the TV networks and CATV organizers. *

     At stake is the allocation of a unique and limited natural
resource, the radiospectrum.

     The technology of spectrum management rests on firmer scientific
principles than that of the social effects of mass media, but both
need extensive research for the best answers.  Altogether,
communications comprise one of the most important frontiers of science
and policy today, and a prototype for managing future scientific
advances.  We are learning that we can manage communications
technology for better living, just as we can ask questions about the
internal combustion engine or about pesticides.

     Freedom of speech is a central issue, but too often as a spurious
confusion of the freedoms of the licensed broadcaster with those of
the public, which is legally excluded from his channel.  As FCC
Commissioner Nicholas Johnson has pointed out, the censorship of
program material would be the most offensive and intrusive way to
protect the public interest in the use of the spectrum.  But, he
continues, this must not deter the public and the FCC from the
most vigorous evaluation and criticism of the actual use of a license.

     The soundest assurance of free speech is to open the channels
to the widest possible extent.  The provisional rules for CATV
include the exciting opportunity to reserve channels for common
carrier use, making them available to all comers at reasonable costs.
The networks' uneasiness about the lifting of their program material
may be a blessing in disguise, if it encourages more original
transmissions on CATV and delayed rebroadcasting of programs of
selected and established merit.

     Broadcasting is full of ironies, but none is more amusing than
the contract between a station's aim to spread its signal as far as
possible and its resistance to anyone else's picking it up for further
spread.  The broadcaster is, of course, afraid that listeners might
hire some one to filter out the ads and relay only the program.  This
might become one of the happy functions of pay TV, providing a second
way to support programs of wide interest.

     Pay TV has been greeted like the work of the devil by the
established networks: it may set up a yardstick of quality and an
escape for a captive audience.  It might undermine the system of
"free" or rather advertising-supported programs.

     The citizenry is, however, not so gullible as to believe it ever
gets anything for nothing.  In his penetrating study, "Television and
Society", Harry J. Skornia points out that the low-income budget
is now taxed to the tune of over $75 a year by the costs of TV
advertising, passed on in consumer prices.

     The consumer is paying the bill, and ought to have a more direct
voice in what it buys.  His choice should cover real alternatives,
not just to whether the clatter coming through the set is just within,
or far beyond, the margin of tolerance and sanity.

*  Since this was written, the agreements have collapsed.  The
tentative proposals would have restrained the cable systems from
forming a national network of their own.
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