The FCC Took My Playboy Away

2005-12-01

The Federal Communication Commission is flexing its muscles again, threatening to involve Congress if U.S. cable operators dont clean up their act.

Sex and violence are rampant on our nations cable channels, and parents are outraged.

The moral beacon that is the FCC is asking cable operators to begin considering offering their subscribers the ability to select channels a la carte instead of being forced to buy bulk packages. They claim this will offer more flexibility for the consumer and help reduce cable prices by allowing subscribers to only pay for what they wish to see. They also have a second mission which is to clean up the smut, or else theyll be forced to have Congress look into the situation in other words, if you dont do what I say, Im telling Mom.

Of course, bulk packages make it possible for cable companies to offer a wide range of programming. If each and every cable subscriber had the opportunity to select the individual channels they wanted in their service it would ultimately make it very difficult for the system operators to cost effectively make niche stations available, not to mention it would add a great deal more complexity to an already chaotic system.

The cable industry is one of the most dysfunctional, least customer friendly businesses out there today. Just imagine if every subscriber in each local market had to have a one-on-one personal interaction with their provider to customize service. WOW! What a mess that would be.

While most of us dont watch a great number of the channels our cable or satellite providers offer, there is comfort in knowing theyre there, and who knows, you just might get a hankering for some Hitler At War on the History Channel after watching
The Mating Rituals of the Sumatran Komodo Dragon on the Discovery Channel.

The FCC claim to be doing this for the parents of America who just cant seem to keep that dirty content off the screen where their children can, no, will see it. Isnt anyone thinking about the children?

I understand the need to alert parents to program content through a ratings system. Ive never objected to this for movies, TV, games, or music. Parents should at least have the right to know the nature of the content floating around in the sphere of our culture.

But why is it that we always have to go to the extreme position of cleaning up the media in all its forms in other words, sanitizing it for the sake of the children? There are 300 million people who live in this free country of ours, and a good portion of them have a lot of things that stayed in Vegas.

Make no mistake, this recent action by the FCC and its chairman Kevin Martin is like a Dad who lobs a nice easy pitch over the plate for his son or daughter seeking re-election in 2006. Look at that one go; its heading for the fence.

Martin actually said, I think the industry needs to do more to address parents concerns. You can always turn the television off and
block the channels you dont want. But why should you have to.

Well, Kev, what happened to parental responsibility? Shouldnt parents know what their children are watching or listening to? Shouldnt they be in control of whats happening in the lives of their children? The answer is YES! Unfortunately, American parents are just a subset of Americans in general who rarely if ever care to be personally responsible for their actions (or inactions). This opens a nice door for the morally superior in our nation to satisfy their goals of making sure we all live life according to their standards.

Of course, it really matters not one bit if the FCC is successful in their efforts to either clean up cable or mandate the cable operators to offer selective programming, as theres something looming on the horizon that is far more difficult (maybe even impossible) to control, and thats the Internet.

Within the next five to ten years, there will be so much video programming being offered through broadband that 500 channels will seem like a box of Lincoln Logs next to a Manhattan skyscraper. It will be very interesting to see how the FCC will be able to control things once they hit a virtual universe as vast as the World Wide Web.

Ahhh!. But going back to the issue of mandating a la carte cable programming, heres an interesting twist. The religious programmers in the U.S. are actually against this and for good reason. They know that if the average person in this country is given the choice of which cable stations they can receive, a whole lot of people are going to opt out of their programming. Even though televangelists like to put forth the notion that we live in a God fearing nation, football wins out any day over church in America. Personally, I would select the religious shows in my cable package as I find them highly entertaining, but thats just my opinion.

The FCC is once again showing that its a Congressional pawn to be moved when its time to prepare for elections. The more they exert their moral control, the more things will ultimately get away from them.