Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: THURSDAY, January 13, 1994                   TAG: 9401130068
SECTION: BUSINESS                    PAGE: B-8   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: WASHINGTON                                LENGTH: Medium

CABLE RIGHTS ARGUED

A 1992 law violates the Constitution's First Amendment "because it specifically dictates who provides the programming that is seen on someone's television screen," H. Bartow Farr III argued for the cable television industry.

But the Clinton administration argued that the government has the authority to ensure that cable companies do not use their monopoly power to drive their broadcast competitors out of business.

The disputed law seeks to promote the diversity provided by, among others, local educational stations and independent broadcasters, said Solicitor General Drew Days III.

"This is not a case in which Congress is dictating what those stations may say," he added.

Some justices were skeptical. Justice Sandra Day O'Connor questioned whether a preference for local broadcasting is enough to "set aside a third of a whole medium for the benefit of a favored class of speakers?"

And Justice Antonin Scalia suggested that perhaps cable companies wanted to drop some stations because "they were very bad stations that people didn't want to watch."

Cable television systems already carry most broadcast stations in their areas, Farr contended. Whatever the Supreme Court rules, he said, may not vastly change the character of cable television.

But the court's ruling, expected by July, is likely to decide how far the Constitution allows the government to go in regulating the rapidly growing cable technology.

The justices are considering whether cable television warrants the broad free-speech protection given to newspapers or the more narrow protection granted to broadcast television and radio.

More than 60 percent of American households with television sets subscribe to cable television, and almost every cable system has a monopoly in the area it serves.

The 1992 Cable Television Consumer Protection and Competition Act requires cable systems to use about one-third of their channel space for local commercial and public broadcast stations. Lawmakers feared that unless broadcasters were guaranteed access to cable systems, they might be squeezed out of the heavy competition for advertising dollars.

Most cable companies have a limited number of channels, Farr said. Turner Broadcasting contends that new cable networks such as the Cartoon Network and the Sci-Fi Channel are having trouble gaining access to cable systems forced to carry local broadcast stations they don't want.

Deciding what television stations to carry is a business decision, but so is deciding which cartoonist's work to publish in a newspaper, Farr said.