From: mjones@sorcery.aix.kingston.ibm.com (Mike Jones)
Subject: Re: The media
Date: Tue, 08 Sep 92 01:39:13 GMT
Reply-To: mjones@donald.aix.kingston.ibm.com
Organization: IBM Corp. Kingston NY

In article <1992Sep5.222444.6974@genie.slhs.udel.edu> tom@genie.slhs.udel.edu (tom) writes:
>In article <1992Sep02.005423.58083@watson.ibm.com> mjones@donald.aix.kingston.ibm.com writes:
>}Well...sort of. The FCC handles frequency allocations, but licenses are all
>}held privately. There's (especially since Reagan) very few rules about who
>}can hold licenses. There's also very little restriction about when you can
>}broadcast if you have a license. In many ways, the FCC has returned to its
>}original purpose of merely being a referee to ensure that broadcasters don't
>}interfere with one another.
>
>since the number of licenses to broadcast is quite limited, the threat
>of non-renewal is a very powerful weapon. (how many FCC "obscenity"
>investigations have there been in the last 5 years? how many stations
>(including satalite channels) have been taken to court or otherwise
>harrassed recently for the content of their programs?)

The number of licenses is limited by the amount of spectrum assigned; the
overall assignments were made long ago. How many obscenity investigations
have there been in the last 5 years? Your phrasing certainly implies that
there have been a lot. I don't have the resources handy to find out, but my
impression (gained largely through friends who work in broadcasting) is that
you could probably count them on the fingers of one hand. If you add in the
number of stations harrassed by the Government (as opposed to, say, being
boycotted by the Wildmons of the world), you might spill over onto a second
hand to count them. Perhaps, since you imply there were many, you could save
me some research and tell me how bad the problem really is?

>}Not all local governments enforce cable
>}monopolies; if yours does, vote 'em out. Local governments are by far the
>}most susceptible to voter pressure. You also have leverage on your cable
>}provider in a way that a Libertarian should appreciate - you don't like the
>}channel selection, don't subscribe! tom sidesteps the question of how many
>}communities would have multiple cable systems if local monopolies weren't
>}the rule. In many communities it's not profitable to have even a single
>}cable company; in many more, the existing cable company is pretty much a
>}natural monopoly, at least for the time being.
>
>true, not all areas have monopoly laws. but why do these laws exist at
>all? if cable is a market where natural monopolies occur frequently, so
>be it. but this is something that is best decided by the market, not
>the government. if anyone actually other than holders of exclusive cable
>franchises actually believes that repealing the laws prohibiting
>competition could in any way harm consumers, i would welcome an explanation 
>of their reasoning.

In the beginning, cable companies insisted on monopoly contracts before they
were willing to spend the money to run the cables into a community for cable
TV. It has become standard operating procedure. In that sense, the market
*did* decide it, rather than the government. Cities that refused the
monopoly contracts didn't get cable. The citizens insisted that the monopoly
contract was an acceptable condition because they wanted their MTV and they
were by God going to get it, so the governments did what the people wanted
and signed the contracts. To the extent that there are communities that will
not get wired for cable in the absence of monopoly contracts, some consumers
would be hurt by their absence. It's not true that there's not competition,
it's just that it occurs at the community level rather than the TV set
level. The community decides which cable TV firm it wants in much the same
way that McDonalds decides to offer Coke rather than Pepsi.

  Mike Jones
  mjones@donald.aix.kingston.ibm.com
  AIX/ESA Development, Kingston NY