• by February 27, 2004

OPERATING IN THE PUBLIC INTEREST, OR MAYBE JUST ITS PRURIENT INTERESTS -- If we're right about the scheduling acumen of MediaVest's DirecTV buys, then you've probably seen (at least several times) the powerful Deutsch spot depicting an expanding flock of pre-teen boys gathered in front of the luminescent screen of a TV set - audio blaring the unmistakably cheesy melody of a pornographic film, when one utters, "What's that?" That, of course, was a great ad campaign, and while it was designed to sell the parental control features built into DirecTV's set-top system, it could have been the commercial Pax TV chief Bud Paxson ran during his appearance before the House Subcommittee on Telecommunications hearing on indecency. Noting that the hearing was precipitated by a few, relatively brief but - in one case questionable (Janet Jackson boob tube rube), in another case unconscionable (Opie & Anthony's St. Pat's scat) - acts of broadcast indecency, Paxson told the committee that they're missing the real point.

"The Super Bowl fiasco was a matter of seconds. But just two days ago, Tuesday, here in Washington, D.C., cable and satellite providers carried 675 hours of pornography mostly on pay per view channels. Yes, a total of 675 hours of filth in one 24-hour period-and at all hours of the day." That was his set-up. Here's Bud's point: "Cable and satellite use the public satellite orbital positions licensed by the FCC. They use microwave frequencies licensed by the FCC and owned by the people and the right of ways on streets also owned by the people. Cable and satellite television could not function without the public's right of ways or the public's spectrum." With that statement, Paxson effectively shifted the discussion from the relatively simple and perpetually irresolvable issue of regulating broadcast TV and radio indecency to the bigger and largely ignored issue of who actually controls the cable TV spectrum and whether it truly falls under the regulatory purview of the federal government.

Right now, it doesn't, so Paxson called on Congress to fix it. "How to fix this moral decay? Empower the FCC. Enact legislation. Have an amendment to the Constitution if necessary. You are the lawmakers. You can do it," he challenged. Paxson's right, of course. The scrutiny of the "public" broadcast airwaves in a laissez-faire environment of "private" cable spectrum represents a double standard of public interest. In the early days of the cable TV industry when mainly rural consumers were buying what effectively was a transmission relay service, you could argue that cable was not a regulatory issue. Even during the build-up of satellite delivered programming, sparked by the launch of HBO and CNN, you could still argue that it was a "private" spectrum issue. But now that more than three quarters of American consumers - of all ages - receive all of their TV programming through those coaxial wires, there's no reason not to apply the same regulatory standards to cable TV that the federal government applies to broadcast TV. Bud Paxson may be a lousy (post-home shopping era) businessman and a poor judge of the quality programming American viewers actually do want, but he is absolutely speaking in the public interest when he raises these issues.

It's too bad that he sullied his point by tagging his own pitch at the end of his Congressional testimony, asking the lawmakers to require cable operators to carry so-called multicast digital TV signals from broadcast stations. Broadcasters, which have been making the conversion from analog to digital broadcast spectrum, now have the ability to split their signals into multiple channels - or multicasted - of programming, but cable operators have been loath to make room within their systems' bandwidth to accommodate it, so broadcasters like Paxson have been asking Congress to pass a "multicast must-carry" law that would require it. "Tell cable and satellite to get the pornography off. They've got room for our multicast channels."

With all due respect to Pax TV, if cable operators are going to make room for more of that dreck, we'd just as soon they use the spectrum for something better - say high-definition TV. But we agree with Bud that they should get rid of the pornos. After all, the Riff still has unregulated broadband Internet access. Meanwhile, we don't expect Congress to act on Paxson's request any time soon. And not just because of their inimitable bureaucratic inertia. It's because of the lawmakers' own vested interests and their fear of some cable TV programming of their own. Want to see something really indecent on national television? Watch C-Span.