Source: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-caDC-96-05272/USCOURTS-caDC-96-05272-0/pdf.json

Nature of Suit Code: 440
Nature of Suit: Other Civil Rights
Cause of Action: 

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United States Court of Appeals

FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA CIRCUIT

Argued December 3, 1999 Decided May 19, 2000

No. 96-5272

Time Warner Entertainment Co., L.P.,

Appellee

v.

United States of America,

Appellant

Appeal from the United States District Court

for the District of Columbia

(No. 92cv02494)

Robert D. Joffe argued the cause for appellee. With him

on the briefs was Henk Brands. Stuart W. Gold entered an

appearance.

Jacob M. Lewis, Attorney, U.S. Department of Justice,

argued the cause for appellant. With him on the brief were

David W. Ogden, Acting Assistant Attorney General, Mark B.

Stern, Attorney, Wilma A. Lewis, U.S. Attorney, Christopher

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J. Wright, General Counsel, Federal Communications Commission, Daniel M. Armstrong, Associate General Counsel,

and James M. Carr, Counsel. William E. Kennard, General

Counsel, and C. Grey Pash, Jr., Counsel, entered appearances.

Andrew Jay Schwartzman, Angela J. Campbell and Randi

M. Albert were on the brief for amici curiae Center for Media

Education, Association of Independent Video and Filmmakers, National Association of Artists' Organizations, National

Alliance for Media Arts and Culture, Consumer Federation of

America, National Council of Senior Citizens, and Office of

Communication, Inc. of the United Church of Christ.

Before: Ginsburg, Rogers and Tatel, Circuit Judges.

Opinion for the Court filed by Circuit Judge Ginsburg.

Ginsburg, Circuit Judge: The Time Warner Entertainment

Company and the United States appeal from portions of the

judgment in Daniels Cablevision, Inc. v. United States, 835

F. Supp. 1 (D.D.C. 1993). At issue is the facial constitutionality of two provisions of the Cable Television Consumer Protection and Competition Act of 1992, Pub. L. No. 102-385, 106

Stat. 1460 (1992 Cable Act). The "subscriber limits provision" directs the Federal Communications Commission to

limit the number of subscribers a cable operator may reach.

47 U.S.C. s 533(f)(1)(A). The "channel occupancy provision"

directs the Commission to limit the number of channels on a

cable system that may be devoted to video programming in

which the operator has a financial interest. Id.

s 533(f)(1)(B). Time Warner argues that both provisions

facially--that is, no matter how sensitively or sensibly they

might be implemented--violate the First Amendment to the

Constitution of the United States; the Commission argues

the opposite. We conclude that both provisions are facially

constitutional.

I. Background

Time Warner and other owners of cable television systems

challenged the constitutionality of the subscriber limits, the

channel occupancy, and various other provisions of the 1992

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Cable Act in Daniels Cablevision. Upon cross-motions for

summary judgment, the district court held that the subscriber limits provision is unconstitutional, see 835 F.Supp. at 10,

but the channel occupancy provision is constitutional, see id.

at 7 & n.11.* The Government appealed the former ruling

while Time Warner appealed the latter.

We consolidated both appeals with Time Warner's petition

to this court for review of the regulations the Commission had

promulgated to implement the two provisions. See Time

Warner Entertainment Co., L.P. v. Federal Communications

Comm'n (Time Warner), 93 F.3d 957, 979-80 (D.C. Cir. 1996).

In September 1999, however, after the consolidated cases had

been scheduled for oral argument, the Commission initiated

further rulemaking proceedings with respect to the two provisions. Consequently, we severed Time Warner's statutory

challenges from its petition for review of the regulations, held

the latter in abeyance pending the completion of the further

rulemaking, and heard oral argument on the constitutionality

of the two statutory provisions that we address today.

II. Analysis

We review de novo the district court's grant of summary

judgment. See, e.g., Aka v. Washington Hospital Center, 156

F.3d 1284, 1288 (D.C. Cir. 1998).

A. The Subscriber Limits Provision

1. The Standard of Review

Time Warner argues that the subscriber limits provision is

a content-based restriction of its ability to communicate with

its audience, and as such is subject to strict scrutiny. See

__________

* The district court at least appears to have found the channel

occupancy provision constitutional on its face. The court noted in a

footnote that "[l]ike the other vertical integration restrictions, the

channel occupancy limits appear unrelated to content. Whether or

not the regulations ultimately promulgated by the Commission will

pass constitutional muster under [intermediate scrutiny] is, of

course, at this point unclear." 835 F. Supp. at 7 n.11.

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Turner Broadcasting System, Inc. v. Federal Communications Comm'n (Turner I), 512 U.S. 622, 642 (1994) (Court has

applied "the most exacting scrutiny to regulations that suppress, disadvantage, or impose differential burdens upon

speech because of its content"). The Government denies that

the subscriber limits provision is content-based, and argues

for an intermediate level of scrutiny. See id.

In order to determine the applicable standard of review,

then, we must decide whether the subscriber limits provision

is content-based. In general, the "principal inquiry in determining content neutrality ... is whether the government has

adopted a regulation of speech because of [agreement or]

disagreement with the message it conveys." Id. (quoting

Ward v. Rock Against Racism, 491 U.S. 781, 791 (1989)). A

law that singles out speech based upon the ideas or views

expressed is content-based, whereas a law that "confer[s]

benefits or impose[s] burdens on speech without reference to

the ideas or views expressed" is most likely content-neutral.

Id. at 643; see also id. at 661 (law that does not "pose ...

inherent dangers to free expression, or present ... potential

for censorship or manipulation, [will not] ... justify application of the most exacting level of First Amendment scrutiny").

As a cable operator, Time Warner exercises editorial discretion in selecting the programming it will make available to

its subscribers. Time Warner argues that the congress limited its ability to speak by restricting the number of subscribers--and therefore potential viewers--it may reach with the

programming it has selected. That this limitation is contentbased, according to Time Warner, is evident from the Senate

Report that accompanied the final version of the 1992 Cable

Act. See H.R. Conf. Rep. No. 102-862, at 81-82 (1992),

reprinted in 1992 U.S.C.C.A.N. 1133, 1133, 1263-64 (adopting

provisions of Senate Bill, as described in Senate Report, S.

Rep. No. 102-92, at 32 (1991) [hereinafter S. Rep.]).

That Report indicated the Congress was concerned about

increasing concentration of ownership and control in the cable

industry:

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... First, there are special concerns about concentration of the media in the hands of a few who may control

the dissemination of information. The concern is that

the media gatekeepers will (1) slant information according to their own biases, or (2) provide no outlet for

unorthodox or unpopular speech because it does not sell

well, or both....

....

The second concern about horizontal concentration is

that it can be the basis of anticompetitive acts. For

example, a market that is dominated by one buyer of a

product, a monopsonist, does not give the seller any of

the benefits of competition....

S. Rep. at 32-33.

Time Warner contends that the Congress's concern that

media gatekeepers would "slant" information or fail to provide outlets for "unorthodox" speech reflects a preference for

one type of content and an intent to suppress another,

namely, the speech of cable operators. The Company likens

the Congress's efforts to limit its speech to the restraints the

Supreme Court held unconstitutional in Buckley v. Valeo, 424

U.S. 1 (1976), and First National Bank of Boston v. Bellotti,

435 U.S. 765 (1978). Buckley involved a federal campaign

finance law aimed at "equalizing the relative ability of individuals and groups to influence the outcome of elections" by

limiting their political expenditures. Id. at 48. The Court

rejected "the concept that government may restrict the

speech of some elements of our society in order to enhance

the relative voice of others [as] wholly foreign to the First

Amendment." Id. at 48-49. Bellotti similarly involved a

state statute that prohibited certain types of businesses from

making contributions or expenditures for the purpose of

influencing particular ballot initiatives. The Court reiterated

the point it had made in Buckley: A state's effort to control

some voices in order to "enhance the relative voices" of less

influential speakers "contradicts basic tenets of First Amendment jurisprudence." Bellotti, 435 U.S. at 791 n.30 (noting

exception "in the special context of limited access to the

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channels of communication" and citing Red Lion Broadcasting Co. v. FCC, 395 U.S. 367 (1969)).

The expenditure limit at issue in Buckley, like the prohibition at issue in Bellotti, was content-based because it "was

concerned with the communicative impact of the regulated

speech." Turner I, 512 U.S. at 658. As the Supreme Court

made quite clear in Turner I, however, making way for some

speakers, in the cable context where that necessarily means

limiting the speech of others, is not inherently content-based.

Id. at 643-45. There the Court determined that the "mustcarry" provision of the 1992 Cable Act, which required cable

operators to "carry the signals of a specified number of local

broadcast television stations," id. at 630, was not contentbased, and applied intermediate scrutiny in its review of that

provision. Although the must-carry obligation restricted cable operators' speech by limiting the number of channels they

could program at will, it did so in a content-neutral fashion

and for a content-neutral reason, namely, to protect the

interests of non-cable subscribers in maintaining the viability

of the television broadcasting industry. Id. at 646.

According to Time Warner, the subscriber limits provision

expresses a hostility to the content of large cable operators'

speech that did not underlie the must-carry obligation: The

subscriber limits are meant to restrict large cable operators

from presenting information in accord with their own "biases," in order thereby to promote a diversity of views in cable

programming. Increasing the diversity of programming is

not, Time Warner argues, among the ends the Supreme

Court deemed content-neutral in Turner I.

Time Warner is correct that the Court's acceptance of the

must-carry obligation as content-neutral rested in large part

upon the Court's understanding that the purpose of the

statute was to maintain the availability of broadcast television

for those without cable; that does not render Turner I wholly

inapplicable, however. The Court also identified the "bottleneck monopoly power" of the cable operator, arising out of

the operator's "control over most (if not all) of the television

programming that is channeled into the subscriber's home,"

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as the threat to broadcast television. 512 U.S. at 656-57, 661.

In enacting the subscriber limits, the Congress was concerned that cable operators might use that same bottleneck

power to exclude other providers of cable programming. As

with the must-carry obligation, its concern was not with what

a cable operator might say, but that it might not let others

say anything at all in the principal medium for reaching much

of the public. See id. at 657 ("The First Amendment's

command that government not impede the freedom of speech

does not disable the government from taking steps to ensure

that private interests not restrict, through physical control of

a critical pathway of communication, the free flow of information and ideas"). The must-carry obligation and the subscriber limits provision both preserve for consumers some competition in the provision of programming. The must-carry

obligation preserves competition between broadcasters and

the cable operator, while the subscriber limits preserve competition between the cable operator and its affiliated programmers on the one hand and unaffiliated providers of cable

programming on the other. By placing a value upon diversity

and competition in cable programming the Congress did not

necessarily also value one speaker, or one type of speech,

over another; it merely expressed its intention that there

continue to be multiple speakers.

Finally, Time Warner argues that the subscriber limits

provision improperly singles out for regulation the cable

medium, as opposed to other video programmers such as

Direct Broadcast Satellite (DBS) operators. Here it refers

us to Turner I, 512 U.S. at 659, where the Court observed,

"Regulations that discriminate among media, or among different speakers within a single medium, often present serious

First Amendment concerns." According to Time Warner,

with the subscriber limits the Congress "targeted a small

number of [the various] speakers" capable of purchasing and

providing video programming, id. at 660, without providing

any justification for limiting the regulation to the cable medium.

In Turner I, however, the Court rejected Turner Broadcasting's claim of discrimination, stating that "[i]t would be

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error to conclude ... that the First Amendment mandates

strict scrutiny for any speech regulation that applies to one

medium (or a subset thereof) but not others." Id. at 660.

Indeed, the same unique characteristic of the cable medium

that justified the imposition of the must-carry obligation is

also invoked by the Government to justify the subscriber

limits, namely, "the bottleneck monopoly power exercised by

cable operators." Id. at 661. In Turner I this bottleneck

power was seen to jeopardize the viability of broadcast television; in this case, it arguably threatens diversity and competition in the provision of cable programming. As the Government notes, other video programmers such as DBS lack the

bottleneck power of cable operators; nor do they reach

nearly as many households as does cable.

In sum, upon examination of the statute, the Senate Report

that accompanied it, and the Supreme Court's analysis of the

must-carry provision at issue in Turner I, we conclude that

the subscriber limits provision is not content-based. In order

to determine whether it is constitutional, therefore, we apply

intermediate, rather than strict scrutiny. Id. at 662.

2. The Merits

A content-neutral regulation of speech "will be sustained

under the First Amendment if it [1] advances important

governmental interests unrelated to the suppression of free

speech and [2] does not burden substantially more speech

than necessary to further those interests." Turner Broadcasting System, Inc. v. Federal Communications Comm'n

(Turner II), 520 U.S. 180, 189 (1997) (citing United States v.

O'Brien, 391 U.S. 367, 377 (1968)). If a regulation on speech

is intended to redress an actual or an anticipated harm to an

important governmental interest, then the Government "must

demonstrate that the recited harms are real, not merely

conjectural, and that the regulation will in fact alleviate these

harms in a direct and material way." Turner I, 512 U.S. at

664. Our review of the Congress's predictive judgments is

deferential; we ask only whether, "in formulating its judgments, Congress has drawn reasonable inferences based on

substantial evidence." Turner II, 520 U.S. at 195. Finally,

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we will uphold a regulation if the important governmental

interest in question "would be achieved less effectively absent

the regulation" and the regulation does not "burden substantially more speech than is necessary to further that interest."

Id. at 213-14 (quoting Turner I, 512 U.S. at 662).

As to advancing an important governmental interest, the

Congress enacted the subscriber limits based upon two stated

concerns: that cable operators would impose their own biases

upon the information they disseminate, and that a few dominant cable operators might preclude new programming services from attaining the critical mass audience necessary to

survive. See S. Rep. at 32-33. Time Warner does not argue

that the Congress failed to identify an important governmental interest, but rather faults the Congress for having acted

without having made findings, and without having evidence

upon which it could have made findings, that either of these

problems is a real one. See, e.g., Reno v. American Civil

Liberties Union, 521 U.S. 844, 117 S. Ct. 2329, 2348 (1997)

(invalidating portion of Communications Decency Act "in the

light of the absence of any detailed findings by the Congress,

or even hearings addressing the special problems of the

CDA").

According to Time Warner, cable operators in fact can

neither bias the flow of information nor obstruct the expression of unpopular speech because other statutory provisions

require them to carry independent programming, including

public, educational, and governmental (PEG) programming,

and the programming on leased access channels and local

broadcast stations. See 47 U.S.C. ss 531, 532, 534 & 535. As

for the concern that cable operators might erect barriers to

the entry of new programming services, Time Warner argues

that the Congress did not establish either that cable operators have attempted to exclude new cable programmers, or

that they have an incentive to do so.

The Government responds that the promotion of diversity

in ideas and speech, as well as the preservation of competition, are important governmental interests, and that the

Congress reasonably viewed increased concentration in the

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cable industry as a threat to both diversity and competition.

The Government acknowledges that the 1992 Cable Act requires cable operators to carry PEG and several other types

of local programming, but argues that these requirements

were not meant directly to preserve competition, nor do they

promote diversity in the sources of cable programming at the

national level.

The Senate Report accompanying the 1992 Cable Act noted

that concentration of ownership had increased dramatically:

by 1990, the five largest cable operators served nearly half

the country's cable subscribers. S. Rep. at 32. Witnesses

testified that as a result of this increase in concentration "the

large MSOs [multiple system operators] have the market

power to determine what programming services can 'make it'

on cable." S. Rep. at 33. Based upon this and related

evidence, the Congress found that "[t]he potential effects of

... concentration [in the cable industry] are barriers to

entry for new programmers and a reduction in the number of

media voices available to consumers." 47 U.S.C. s 521(a)(4).

It also found that "[t]here is a substantial governmental and

First Amendment interest in promoting a diversity of views

provided through multiple technology media." Id.

s 521(a)(6). We conclude that the Congress drew reasonable

inferences, based upon substantial evidence, that increases in

the concentration of cable operators threatened diversity and

competition in the cable industry. See Turner II, 520 U.S. at

195-96 (discussing deference due to Congress's findings).

As to burdening more speech than necessary, Time Warner

argues that subscriber limits will not increase the diversity of

information sources available to the public in any locale.

Nor, we are told, are subscriber limits necessary in order to

promote competition; the antitrust laws, as well as the antidiscrimination provision of the 1992 Cable Act, see 47 U.S.C.

s 536(a)(3), provide a sufficient check upon any potentially

anticompetitive conduct by cable operators.

Although we cannot say that a national ownership cap will

surely increase the diversity of programming available at the

local level, neither are we required to do so in order to uphold

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the statute as constitutional. See, e.g., United States v.

Albertini, 472 U.S. 675, 689 (1985) ("The validity of [a]

regulation[ ] does not turn on a judge's agreement with the

responsible decisionmaker concerning the most appropriate

method for promoting significant government interests"). It

is enough that, having determined that "[c]oncentration has

grown dramatically in the cable industry," S. Rep. at 32, the

Congress reasonably concluded that this concentration threatened the diversity of information available to the public and

could form a barrier to the entry of new cable programmers.

That is hardly an unreasonable inference. See Federal Communications Comm'n v. National Citizens Committee for

Broadcasting, 436 U.S. 775, 780 (1978); Phillip E. Areeda et

al., Antitrust Law p 420a (1995).

Nor is it a fatal flaw that the subscriber limits provision

focuses upon behavior already arguably proscribed by other

laws. In the subscriber limits provision the Congress took a

structural approach to the regulation of cable operators,

whereas the antidiscrimination provision of the 1992 Cable

Act and the antitrust laws are behavioral prohibitions. As a

structural limitation, the subscriber limits provision adds a

prophylaxis to the law and avoids the burden of individual

proceedings to remedy particular instances of anticompetitive

behavior. Cf. Turner II, 520 U.S. at 222-23 (dismissing

petitioner's suggestion that antitrust enforcement or an administrative complaint procedure is an adequate alternative to

must-carry obligation: "Congress could conclude ... that the

considerable expense and delay inherent in antitrust litigation, and the great disparities in wealth and sophistication

between the average independent broadcast station and average cable system operator, would make these remedies inadequate substitutes"). In sum, Time Warner has not demonstrated that the subscriber limits provision is on its face

either unnecessary or unnecessarily overburdensome.

B. The Channel Occupancy Provision

1. The Standard of Review

The channel occupancy provision requires the Commission

to establish limits upon "the number of channels on a cable

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system that can be occupied by a video programmer in which

a cable operator has an attributable interest." 47 U.S.C.

s 533(f)(1)(B). Time Warner likens this provision to "a law

prohibiting newspapers from devoting more than a fraction of

their columns to editorial content of their own." That this

restriction is content-based, it argues, is evident from the

Senate Report:

Vertical integration in the cable industry .... gives

cable operators the incentive and ability to favor their

affiliated programming services. For example, the cable

operator might give its affiliated programmer a more

desirable channel position than another programmer, or

even refuse to carry other programmers.

....

[The channel occupancy provision] is designed to increase the diversity of voices available to the public.

Some [MSOs] own many programming services. It

would be unreasonable for them to occupy a large percentage of channels on a cable system.

The intent of this provision is to place reasonable

limits on the number of channels that can be occupied by

each MSO's programming services.

S. Rep. at 25, 80.

Time Warner argues that because the Congress expressed

concern that cable operators might favor their affiliated programming services the legislature's "stated design was to

suppress cable operators' speech," and to advance the speech

of nonaffiliated programmers. Again analogizing itself to a

newspaper publisher, see Miami Herald Publishing Co. v.

Tornillo, 418 U.S. 241, 255-56 (1974), Time Warner argues

that a cable operator has a constitutional right to favor its

own speech. By interfering with that right in order to alter

the mix of programming available on cable, the Congress has

impermissibly regulated the content of cable operators'

speech.

A cable operator is unlike a newspaper publisher, however,

in the one respect crucial to the Congress's reason for

enacting the channel occupancy provision: A newspaper publisher does not have the ability to exclude competing publications from its subscribers' homes. The cable operator's bottleneck monopoly is a physical and economic barrier to such

intra-medium competition. The channel occupancy provision

responds in kind, without regard to the content of either the

cable operator's speech or that of the unaffiliated programmer for which it secures an outlet. See Turner I, 512 U.S. at

656.

Nor does the Congress's wanting to ensure a multiplicity of

voices on cable inherently bespeak a preference for or a bias

against the content of any speech. That is why, in Time

Warner, we upheld under intermediate scrutiny the "leased

access provision" of the 1992 Cable Act. That provision

requires cable operators to set aside a percentage of their

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channels for commercial use by unaffiliated programmers in

order both to bring "the widest possible diversity of information sources" to cable subscribers and "to promote competition in the delivery of diverse sources of video programming."

93 F.3d at 968-69. In that case, we rejected Time Warner's

argument that the leased access provision was a contentbased restriction, and therefore subject to strict scrutiny,

because nothing in the statute favored or disfavored speech

on the basis of its content: "The statutory objective ... [is]

framed in terms of the sources of information rather than the

substance of the information." Id. at 969 (citing Associated

Press v. United States, 326 U.S. 1, 20, 65 (1945)).

Time Warner now argues that whereas the objective of the

leased access provision was to promote speech from various

sources without regard to content, the channel occupancy

provision is meant to limit speech from a particular type of

source and therefore necessarily imposes a content-based

restriction. Here it refers us to the statement in the Senate

Report that cable operators may have "the incentive and

ability to favor" their own or an affiliate's speech. S. Rep. at

25. In response, the Government explains, and we agree,

that the legislative concern was not with the speech of a

particular source but solely with promoting diversity and

competition in the cable industry. Like the leased access

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provision, that is, the focus of the channel occupancy provision is upon the source of speech, not its content. See Time

Warner, 93 F.3d at 969 (the "qualification [of nonaffiliates] to

lease time on [a cable operator's] channels depends not on the

content of their speech, but on their lack of affiliation with the

operator, a distinguishing characteristic stemming from considerations relating to the structure of cable television").

We recognize, of course, the possibility that a seemingly

neutral limitation may have been crafted in such a way as to

single out for regulation the speech of some group that the

legislature finds objectionable. See Minneapolis Star &

Tribune Co. v. Minnesota Comm'r of Revenue, 460 U.S. 575,

580, 592 (1983) (noting that result in Grosjean v. American

Press Co., 297 U.S. 233 (1936), "may have been attributable in

part to the perception on the part of the Court that the State

imposed the tax with an intent to penalize a selected group of

newspapers"). There is not a shred of evidence, however, that

such an illicit consideration underlies the channel occupancy

provision, and indeed Time Warner stops well short of claiming otherwise. We are therefore confident that the channel

occupancy provision is content-neutral and subject only to

intermediate scrutiny.

2. The Merits

In applying intermediate scrutiny, we inquire "not whether

Congress, as an objective matter, was correct" that the

channel occupancy provision is necessary to increase the

diversity of voices available to the public via cable, but rather

"whether the legislative conclusion was reasonable and supported by substantial evidence in the record before Congress." Turner II, 520 U.S. at 211. Time Warner argues

that the Congress's reason for enacting the channel occupancy provision--to prevent cable operators from favoring affiliated programmers and possibly even excluding others--addresses only a speculative harm because the Congress had no

evidence that such exclusionary conduct actually had occurred. On the contrary, Time Warner contends, a cable

operator has an incentive to contract with unaffiliated programmers to the extent that doing so will increase the

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attractiveness of the video programming packages it offers to

subscribers; this incentive is reinforced by increased competition from DBS and other alternative providers of video

programming.

Nothing in these protestations demonstrates that the Congress's legislative conclusion was either unreasonable or unsupported by substantial evidence. See Turner II, 520 U.S.

at 211. The findings in the 1992 Cable Act document the

Congress's concerns with affiliation between cable operators

and cable programmers:

The cable industry has become vertically integrated;

cable operators and cable programmers often have common ownership. As a result, cable operators have the

incentive and ability to favor their affiliated programmers. This could make it more difficult for noncableaffiliated programmers to secure carriage on cable systems. Vertically integrated program suppliers also have

the incentive and ability to favor their affiliated cable

operators over nonaffiliated cable operators and programming distributors using other technologies.

47 U.S.C. s 521(a)(5). The Senate Report accompanying the

Act discusses the evidence upon which the Congress based

these conclusions. Time Warner is of course correct that a

cable operator has an incentive to offer an attractive package

of programs to consumers, but the company does not deny

that a cable operator also has an incentive to favor its

affiliated programmers; where the two forces are in conflict,

the operator may, as a rational profit-maximizer, compromise

the consumers' interests. Hence, the concern of the Congress is well grounded in the evidence and a bit of economic

common sense.

Finally, Time Warner argues that the channel occupancy

provision is unnecessary in light of the anti-discrimination

provision of the 1992 Cable Act as well as the antitrust laws.

As we noted earlier, however, a prophylactic, structural limitation is not rendered unnecessary merely because preexisting statutes impose behavioral norms and ex post remedies. Cf. Turner II, 520 U.S. at 222-23.

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III. Conclusion

For the foregoing reasons, we conclude that the subscriber

limits and channel occupancy provisions do not run afoul of

the first amendment. The judgment of the district court is

reversed insofar as it held that the subscriber limits provision

is unconstitutional, and affirmed insofar as it held that the

channel occupancy provision is constitutional.

So ordered.

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