C-SPAN reaches 71 million cable and satellite subscribers. If he's right, it's unclear what programming viewers might see instead. Most broadcasters haven't decided what they'll show on digital TV, although the major networks intend to show HDTV in prime time. Cable executives say that TV stations could easily devote their digital spectrum to profitable, but not socially useful, fare such as home shopping. ''In the end, if broadcasters have programming that's informative and entertaining, then we'll want to carry it,'' says National Cable Television Association President Decker Anstrom. Broadcasters counter that Lamb and the cable industry are just trying to scare lawmakers and the public.
Broadcasters also insist that they're on firm legal ground.
The U.S. Supreme Court concluded that free local broadcast TV is so important to the public that the government could insist station signals be carried on cable. It's easy to see why the FCC would love to have broadcasters and cable operators negotiate a solution and has all but begged them to do so. But chances for a settlement appear slim. Both sides believe they are standing for a bedrock principle. Meanwhile, the FCC's Cable and Mass Media Bureaus are hammering out a position that commissioners can use as a starting point for their deliberations.