Laws cannot interfere with a broadcaster's editorial judgments. But a broadcaster's choice to air one commercial rather than another is not an editorial judgment. It's a pure business decision. That's why we call them commercials. And the First Amendment does not protect a broadcaster's right to extract the largest possible profit from every commercial spot.
Broadcasters understand the distinction well.
And with the broadcasters cheering loudly at the sidelines, the Supreme Court rejected the cable operators' free speech objections. If the government can say that cable companies must carry the broadcasters' shows, then certainly it can say that broadcasters must carry political advertisements. In the end, all this talk about free speech and constitutional entitlement is a thin subterfuge for protecting the bottom line. It won't be long before the public will see through it, as it is beginning to see through the constitutional fig leaves donned by self-interested politicians as an excuse for inaction in the face of the campaign finance scandals of 1996. The new villains of the next election cycle will be the broadcasters.