Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/boundvolumes/529bv.pdf
Page Number: 895.0

529US3

Unit: $U60

[09-26-01 12:39:04] PAGES PGT: OPIN

820

UNITED STATES v. PLAYBOY ENTERTAINMENT
GROUP, INC.
Opinion of the Court

“The Government presented evidence of two city
councillors, eighteen individuals, one United States Sen-
ator, and the ofﬁcials of one city who complained either
to their [cable operator], to their local Congressman, or
to the FCC about viewing signal bleed on television.
In
each instance, the local [cable operator] offered to, or did
in fact, rectify the situation for free (with the exception
of 1 individual), with varying degrees of rapidity.
In-
cluded in the complaints was the additional concern that
other parents might not be aware that their children are
exposed to this problem.
In addition, the Government
presented evidence of a child exposed to signal bleed at
a friend’s house. Cindy Omlin set the lockout feature
on her remote control to prevent her child from tuning
to adult channels, but her eleven year old son was never-
theless exposed to signal bleed when he attended a
slumber party at a friend’s house.

“The Government has presented evidence of only a
handful of isolated incidents over the 16 years since 1982
when Playboy started broadcasting. The Government
has not presented any survey-type evidence on the mag-
nitude of the ‘problem.’ ”
Id., at 709 (footnote and rec-
ord citations omitted).

Spurred by the District Court’s express request for more
speciﬁc evidence of the problem, see 945 F. Supp., at 779,
n. 16, the Government also presented an expert’s spread-
sheet estimate that 39 million homes with 29.5 million chil-
dren had the potential to be exposed to signal bleed, 30
F. Supp. 2d, at 708–709. The Government made no attempt
to conﬁrm the accuracy of its estimate through surveys or
other ﬁeld tests, however. Accordingly, the District Court
discounted the ﬁgures and made this ﬁnding: “[T]he Govern-
ment presented no evidence on the number of households
actually exposed to signal bleed and thus has not quantiﬁed
Id., at
the actual extent of the problem of signal bleed.”