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Home shopping and the public interest
From: David Farber <farber () central cis upenn edu>
Date: Mon, 13 Sep 1993 15:24:42 -0500
Date: Mon, 13 Sep 1993 15:10:32 -0500 To: com-priv () psi com From: djw () eff org (Daniel J. Weitzner) Subject: Home shopping and the public interest As part of regulations implementing the 1992 Cable Act, the FCC recently had to decide whether home shopping channels were legally entitled, along with local broadcast TV stations, to be carried on cable networks. The Commission found that home shopping stations serve the "public interest" and therefore had the right to demand that local cable operators carry their broadcasts, whether cable operators want to or not. Commissioner Ervin Duggan wrote a dissent, part of which seems worthy of attention: I must dissent to today's action on the question of Home Shopping stations and the public interest.... The view being pressed upon the Commission is that home shopping pitches are not commercials; that home shopping messages, instead, constitute education and entertainment. [....] Today, sadly, the Commission deliberately and explicitly puts forward a minimalist definition of the public interest standard, at precisely the moment when we should be mending and refurbishing that tattered banner and lifting it high over a broadcast culture that is, to borrow Gerard Manley Hopkins' poignant phrase, "all . . . seared with trade." I sympathize with the difficulties my colleagues face, given the implications of this vote for the must-carry provisions of the 1992 Cable Act. I sympathize with those home shopping licensees who, as minority members, have embraced this format as an entry path into the broadcast industry; I know several of them and admire their entrepreneurial efforts. This question, nevertheless, presents deep questions of public policy and principle that, in the end, prevent me from voting with my colleagues. My quarrel, in the end, is not with these licensees, who after all have been operating under the Commission's rules since home shopping was introduced nearly a decade ago; it is with a regulatory philosophy that seems no longer to care about quality. [....] In 1929, the old Radio Commission, predecessor of today's FCC, set forth its definition of the public interest standard in words that required broadcasters to present diverse programming including "entertainment, music of both classical and lighter grades, religion, education and instruction, important public events, discussions of public questions, weather, market reports and . . . news." Are Congress and the Commission ready now to abandon this ideal? I hope not, and I cast my dissent in the hope that some day Congress and the Commission will find it possible to visit this question again. Until we do, I will think of the public interest standard as a sort of once-handsome thoroughbred so abused and neglected that it has finally broken down in the middle of the track. Perhaps we can take it back to the paddock in the hope that, with care and love, it can produce offspring to recall and renew the beauty of the original. If not, let us simply put the poor beast out of its misery once and for all. ................................................................... **** NOTE NEW STREET ADDRESS AND PHONE #s **** Daniel J. Weitzner, Senior Staff Counsel Electronic Frontier Foundation 1001 G St, NW Suite 950 East Washington, DC 20001 202-347-5400 (v) 202-393-5509 (f)
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