Many aren't buying FCC a la carte report
Parents Television Council has issued an action alert to its membership, urging them to contact Congress immediately in support of instituting an a la carte program selection regime for basic cable programming. The alert came in response to an FCC report which said that instituting such a regime would actually raise monthly cable bills by 14%-30% for most subscribers (11/22/04 RBR Daily Epaper #228).
"An 'a la carte' system would give parents the ability to choose which channels they want, and to pay only for those channels, rather than forcing parents to continue to subsidize extremely graphic sexual, profane and violent cable programming on channels they never watch," wrote PTC, which went on to take the FCC to task for not even mentioning the indecency issue in its report. PTC concluded, "To say that cable television is in the sewer would be an insult to sewage." Charging the cable industry and the FCC with failure, it wants Congress to step in.
PTC has at least one strong ally there already: John McCain (R-AZ), who issued a statement on the topic of his own. "Upon an initial review of the report, I am disappointed in what appears to be a paucity of discussion on the effect of cable and satellite companies offering an a la carte pricing option to consumers in addition to existing pricing options. Instead, it appears the industry has been successful once again in distracting policy makers with a 'parade of horribles' that they allege would result from a mandatory a la carte offering. Unfortunately, this creates a fog that obscures the reality that allowing consumers to purchase individual channels would give consumers more control over their cable and satellite bills, particularly for those consumers who watch only a few channels. On behalf of consumers, I will continue working to provide them with more choices and lower prices in the pay television market, whether it be through advocating a voluntary a la carte option or promoting greater competition in the pay television market."
Are you reading this from a forwarded email?
