Cable Communications Act of 1984 - Outcomes and Debates

Outcomes and Debates

The Cable Communications Act of 1984 had minimal advantages, because it was enacted around a strong legislative agreement between the demands of cable operators and the demands of the public. During the negotiation process, there was relatively little public participation meaning cable consumers and Public, educational, and government access (PEG) advocates were left vulnerable to cable operators' enforcement and decisions.

There was dramatic growth in the cable industry once the act went into effect. However, it remained largely in the hands of few local monopolies that were able to determine the content of the programs and set the rates for services and channels on their system. These changes in authority weren’t immediate, but evolved over the course of a few years. Cable consumers were outraged with the increases in prices and services, whereas municipalities were annoyed with violated contracts. Many of these outcomes can be attributed to the Federal Communication Commission’s (FCC) interpretation of Congress’ mandates, which contained poor choice of language and confusion over the First Amendment to the United States Constitution.

Cable consumers’ complaints about the outcomes led to policy discussions in the late eighties and early nineties in which public interest was considered but not represented. If monopolies were broken apart and competition was restored, then many of the problems would likely be resolved. Cable operators would not refuse to carry programs and services with popular demand, and prices would return to appropriate and economical rates. In order to address this problem, the Cable Television Protection and Competition Act of 1992 was passed to regulate cable television rates that cable operators charged consumers.

The law, intending to grant privileges to local community members by allowing them to require PEG channels also allowed these municipalities to decide against PEG requirements. In franchise agreements, contracted between cable operators and municipalities, the municipality could specify a PEG channel requirement and later opt-out of these channels, keeping the cable television franchise fees for their general fund and supplying their communities with no PEG outlets or channel capacity. Since its approval, many public-access television centers have closed as a result of the opt-out provision.

Since the act prevented cable operators from regulating publicly generated content, much controversy developed around what was allowed to appear on these channels. A public-access television center in Eau Claire, Wisconsin was faulted for televising a video created by Christian Bangert, a man convicted of murdering a city police officer. The tape was shown repeatedly during Bangert’s trial, and many people felt its airing was in bad taste. Across the country, controversial content such as explicit sex and promotion of Nazi groups have aired via PEG channels. Congress, in an attempt to protect viewers from indecent programming, passed the Cable Television Protection and Competition Act of 1992, which allowed the FCC to establish rules requiring cable operators to prohibit particular shows. In 1996, the U.S. Supreme Court declared that the law was unconstitutional claiming that cable operators should never be required to act on behalf of the federal government to control expression in relation to content.

Commercial leased access did not provide cable subscribers with a diversity of information as it was required, because it was avoided and never mandated by local franchising authority. In the 1998 court case Time Warner Entertainment Co. vs. FCC, the court deemed the act ineffective in terms of unaffiliated programming. "The 1984 legislation did not accomplish much. Unaffiliated programming on leased channels rarely appeared." The Cable Television Consumer Protection and Competition Act reinforced its intent that leased access to provide a diversity of information to subscribers as determined by the cable operators. The Time Warner Entertainment Co. vs. FCC court also upheld the provision mentioned above.