Task: songer_direct1

What follows is an opinion from a United States Court of Appeals.
Your task is to determine the ideological directionality of the court of appeals decision, coded as "liberal" or "conservative". Consider liberal to be for assertion of broadest interpretation of First Amendment protection. Consider the directionality to be "mixed" if the directionality of the decision was intermediate to the extremes defined above or if the decision was mixed (e.g., the conviction of defendant in a criminal trial was affirmed on one count but reversed on a second count or if the conviction was afirmed but the sentence was reduced). Consider "not ascertained" if the directionality could not be determined or if the outcome could not be classified according to any conventional outcome standards.

Opinion for the court filed by Circuit Judge J. SKELLY WRIGHT.
J. SKELLY WRIGHT, Circuit Judge.
FCC regulations require cable television operators, upon request and without compensation, to transmit to their subscribers every over-the-air television broadcast signal that is “significantly viewed in the community” or otherwise considered local under the Commission’s rules. 47 C.F.R. §§ 76.57-76.61 (1984). Alleging that these mandatory carriage or “must-carry” rules violate the First Amendment rights of cable programmers, cable operators, and the viewing public, Turner Broadcasting Systems, Inc. (TBS), the owner of a variety of cable services, petitioned the FCC to institute rulemaking procedures to delete the offending regulations. Although acknowledging that the challenged rules deprive cable programmers of access to some audiences and “compel carriage of broadcast signals in place of alternate programming that subscribers, if given a choice, might otherwise choose,” the Commission denied TBS’s petition. Memorandum Opinion and Order, FCC 84-136, April 6, 1984 (hereinafter Opinion and Order), at 3, Joint Appendix to No. 83-2050 {Turner JA) at 3. TBS now petitions for review of that denial. In a separate action, Quincy Cable Television, Inc. (Quincy), the operator of a cable system in Quincy, Washington, petitions for review of an FCC order requiring it to carry the signals of several local broadcast stations and imposing a $5,000 “forfeiture” for its failure to do so.
In the course of reviewing those petitions, we have concluded and now hold that the must-carry rules are fundamentally at odds with the First Amendment and, as currently drafted, can no longer be permitted to stand.
I. Background
The Supreme Court has repeatedly stressed that “[e]ach medium of expression * * * must be assessed for First Amendment purposes by standards suited to it, for each may present its own problems.” Southeastern Promotions, Ltd. v. Conrad, 420 U.S. 546, 557, 95 S.Ct. 1239, 1246, 43 L.Ed.2d 448 (1975). See also Metromedia, Inc. v. City of San Diego, 453 U.S. 490, 501, 101 S.Ct. 2882, 2889, 69 L.Ed.2d 800 (1981) (plurality opinion). Mindful that in applying the broad principles of the First Amendment to new media we must remain sensitive to the “differing natures, values, abuses and dangers” of each method of expression, Kovacs v. Cooper, 336 U.S. 77, 97, 69 S.Ct. 448, 459, 93 L.Ed. 513 (1949) (Jackson, J., concurring), we examine in detail the nature of cable television technology, the history and purposes of the FCC’s regulation of that technology, and prior judicial assessments of the constitutionality of that regulation.
A. Cable Television Regulation and the Origins and Purposes of the Must-Carry Rules
1.
Cable television and ordinary commercial broadcast television operate on the basis of wholly different technical and entrepreneurial principles. See generally Capital Cities Cable, Inc. v. Crisp, — U.S. -, 104 S.Ct. 2694, 2701, 81 L.Ed.2d 580 (1984). Conventional broadcasters radiate electromagnetic waves from a transmitting antenna. The waves are intercepted by the viewer’s television receiver, typically via a rooftop antenna, and decoded to produce a video image. Broadcasters derive their revenues not by selling the signal to the viewer but by selling time to advertisers. As a general rule, the larger the audience the greater the rate the broadcaster can charge.
In contrast, cable operators charge subscribers a fee for the right to view programming from a variety of broadcast and non-broadcast sources.' Although cable systems frequently have the capacity to originate programming, most of their viewing fare consists of retransmission of signals generated by independent entities. Typically, the system offers local over-the-air broadcast signals captured by a strategically located master antenna, distant broadcast signals, which are often imported via satellite, and non-broadcast signals transmitted exclusively to cable systems by satellite or microwave relay. The cable operator converts the signal received from these or other sources into an electronic impulse and delivers it to subscribers’ homes over a coaxial cable. Because the cable signal reaches the home by wire and not via the physically limited electromagnetic spectrum, cable systems have the potential, often unrealized, to transmit many more signals than the airwaves can support. Some new or recently upgraded systems have the capacity to offer more than 100 channels. More currently operational systems, however, can carry far fewer, typically from 12 to 36.
Although initially reluctant to exercise jurisdiction over cable, by the mid-1960’s the FCC had changed its position and undertook comprehensive regulation of the budding industry. See generally United States v. Southwestern Cable Co., 392 U.S. 157, 88 S.Ct. 1994, 20 L.Ed.2d 1001 (1968) (canvassing early history of FCC regulation of cable); D. Le Due, Cable Television and the FCC (1973). Fully recognizing that the statutory basis for its jurisdiction was far from explicit, the Commission nonetheless believed that oversight was imperative lest the “explosive” growth of the cable industry undermine the regulatory framework already established for ordinary broadcast television. Rules re Microwave-Served CATV, First Report and Order in Docket No. 14895, 38 FCC 683, 685, 697-716 (1965) (First Report and Order)] CATV, Second Report and Order in Docket No. 14895, 2 FCC2d 725 (1966) {Second Report and Order).
The Commission’s objective was not merely to protect an established industry from the encroachment of an upstart young competitor, although such a result was clearly the byproduct of the regulatory posture that developed. Rather, the Commission took the position that without the power to regulate cable it could not discharge its statutory obligation to provide for “fair, efficient, and equitable” distribution of service among “the several States and communities.” 47 U.S.C. § 307(b) (1982). See First Report and Order, 38 FCC at 699; Second Report and Order, 2 FCC2d at 734-737. If permitted to grow unfettered, the Commission feared, cable might well supplant ordinary broadcast television. A necessary consequence of such displacement would be to undermine the FCC’s mandate to allocate the broadcast spectrum in a manner that best served the public interest. In particular, if an unregulated, unlicensed cable industry were to threaten the economic viability of broadcast television, the Commission would be powerless to effect what it saw (and continues to see) as one of its cardinal objectives: the development of a “system of [free] local broadcasting stations, such that ‘all communities of appreciable size [will] have at least one television station as an outlet for local self-expression.’ ” United States v. Southwestern Cable Co., supra, 392 U.S. at 174, 88 S.Ct. at 2003, quoting H.R.Rep. No. 87-1559, 87th Cong., 2d Sess. 3 (1962).
2.
Almost from the beginning, the must-carry rules were a centerpiece of the FCC’s efforts to actively oversee the growth of cable television. Then, as now, the applicability of the rules varied according to such factors as the quality of the broadcast signal available in the community. In general, however, the rules required cable operators, upon request, to carry any broadcast signal considered local under the Commission’s complex formula. Affected parties could petition for a waiver from their must-carry obligations, but the rules themselves drew few lines. They required carriage of every local or significantly viewed signal irrespective of the number of must-carry channels already being transmitted, the degree of programming duplication, or the channel capacity of a cable system.
Although the economic analysis initially advanced in support of the must-carry rules was somewhat complicated, the Commission’s general objective was straightforward: to assure that the advent of cable technology not undermine the financial viability of free, community-oriented television. If cable were to “drive out television broadcasting service,” the Commission reasoned, “the public as a whole would lose far more — in free service, in service to outlying areas, and in local service with local control and selection of programs— than it would gain.” First Report and Order, 38 FCC at 700. The must-carry rules, together with a comprehensive body of related regulations, would channel the development of the nascent cable industry to limit the risks it might pose to conventional broadcasting, “society’s chosen instrument for the provision of video services.” Inquiry Into the Economic Relationship Between Broadcasting and Cable Television, 71 FCC2d 632, 644 (1979) (Economic Inquiry Report).
At the time of the initial promulgation of the rules, the Commission acknowledged that it had insufficient data to “predict with reliability” the extent of the risk posed by cable. First Report and Order, 38 FCC at 711. See also Second Report and Order, 2 FCC2d at 744-745. But the economic analysis posited by the broadcasting industry (and now espoused by the Commission) painted a dire picture. First Report and Order, 38 FCC at 689. The profitability of local commercial television is dependent on advertising revenues, which in turn are dependent on the number of viewers in the audience. Self-evidently,' an advertiser will pay less per unit of air time as viewership decreases. If a significant percentage of viewers subscribe to cable and if subscribers view cable to the exclusion of broadcast television, the audience will become fragmented. “A gain of a subscriber to the [cable] system will in most cases mean the effective loss of a potential viewer for the local station.” Id. at 703. With access to a smaller (often less affluent) market, advertisers will pay less for air time and profits will decline, a consequence that both discourages others from seeking a broadcast license and, in the extreme case, might even result in financial failure of some existing stations. Only if local broadcasters were assured access to the whole of their allocated audience, the FCC believed, could the risk of audience fragmentation and the concomitant threat to free, local television be forestalled.
A central premise of this analysis was that a significant proportion of cable subscribers would cease to view local television unless such signals were carried by the cable system. At first blush, as the cable industry vigorously pointed out, this assumption was somewhat counter-intuitive. Almost without exception, the must-carry rules only mandate carriage of signals that can already be picked up off the air. Although the cable attaches to the television set through the VHF outlet, an inexpensive switch (the “A/B switch”) would enable a viewer to alternate between cable and off-air VHF signals. Indeed, connection of the cable typically has no direct effect at all on receipt of UHF signals. Thus, in principle, a cable subscriber with little or no effort could still view local broadcasts even without the benefit of the must-carry rules. If that were the case, cable’s gain would not necessarily mean broadcast television’s loss, and the Commission’s reasoning would be deprived of its major premise.
But, as the FCC pointed out when it first enacted the rules, the technical availability of off-air signals does not necessarily defeat the assumption that without the must-carry rules a significant number of cable subscribers might curtail their viewing of local broadcast television. Even so minor a task as flicking an A/B switch, the Commission suggested, “is an obvious deterrent to its use.” First Report and Order, 38 FCC at 702. Moreover, with or without a switch local signals are available to the subscriber only if the antenna remains attached. Yet, the Commission observed, one of the main selling points of cable is the prospect of dispensing with unsightly or expensive antennas. Id. at 702 n. 25. Finally, even if the antenna remains in place, cable retransmission of UHF signals usually provides a far clearer picture than is available off-air. Thus, the Commission suggested, without the benefit of must-carry UHF stations would be at a significant competitive disadvantage. Economic Inquiry Report, 71 FCC2d at 713; see also Cable Television Program Syndicated Exclusivity Rules, 79 FCC2d 663, 718 (1980) (Syndicated Exclusivity Rules.)
In sum, at the time of their original promulgation the Commission viewed the must-carry rules as critical stones in the regulatory bulwark erected to guard against destruction of free, community-oriented television. By forcing cable systems to carry local and significantly viewed broadcast signals, the Commission sought to channel the growth of cable in a manner consistent with the public’s interest in the preservation of local broadcasting.
3.
When it first promulgated the must-carry rules in the mid-1960’s, the Commission recognized that it could not prove the factual predicates of its analysis. Although frankly relying on its “collective instinct” and “intuition,” Inquiry Into Economic Relationship Between Television Broadcasting and Cable Television, 65 FCC2d 9, 14 (1977) (Notice of Inquiry), it concluded that it would be inconsistent with its responsibilities to “withhold[] action until indisputable proof of irreparable damage to the public interest in television broadcasting has been compiled — i.e., by waiting ‘until the bodies pile up’ before conceding that the problem exists.” First Report and Order, 38 FCC at 701.
In the ensuing years the Commission has repeatedly repromulgated and fine-tuned the must-carry rules. See Commission Proposals for Regulation of Cable Television, 31 FCC2d 115, 118-120 (1971); Cable Television Report and Order, 36 FCC2d 143, 173-176 (1972). It has, however, never reconsidered or seriously questioned the elaborate and concededly speculative premises on which its economic defense of the rules rests.
This approach is in sharp contrast to the Commission’s treatment of several other components of the regulatory framework imposed in the early years of its regulation of cable television. After conducting a comprehensive economic analysis based on a detailed and highly sophisticated examination of a number of discrete television markets, the Commission eliminated the distant-signal-carriage and syndicated-exclusivity rules. Like the must-carry rules, the deleted regulations were originally promulgated to protect broadcast television from competition from the expanding cable industry. See Economic Inquiry Report; Syndicated Exclusivity Rules (deleting'syndicated-exclusivity and distant-signal rules).
In the context of this wide-ranging deregulatory effort, the Commission acknowledged a radical shift in its perception of the role of cable in the array of viewing options available in a given community. Abandoning its initial view of cable as an auxiliary service that merely supplemented broadcasting by improving reception in outlying areas, the Commission now recognized cable as a legitimate, independent vehicle for providing alternative video services to the public. Economic Inquiry Report, 71 FCC2d at 645-646. With respect to the specific question of the continued value of the distant-signal and syndicated-exclusivity rules, the Commission found that its general economic analysis had failed to substantiate the intuitive fears on which the rules had been premised since the mid-1960’s.
Upon examination of the economic evidence, we conclude that competition from cable television does not pose a significant threat to conventional television or to our overall broadcasting policies. * * [Ajudience losses attributable to increased competition from cable television take place in a context of offsetting factors. Increases in population and in the level of economic activity result in a fairly steady growth in the demand for advertising exposures and in station revenues. Thus, the ability of stations to maintain existing levels of service to their communities is likely to be unimpaired in the absence of our distant signal carriage rules.
Id. at 661. Stating that the comprehensive nature of its analysis enabled it to speak “with a clarity[] which is uncommon in matters of public policy,” the Commission found that “continued regulatory intervention is not merely unnecessary, it is counterproductive.” Id. at 659.
B. Prior Constitutional Challenges to Cable Regulations
On several occasions the Supreme Court has addressed questions concerning the breadth of the FCC’s jurisdiction over cable television. See United States v. Southwestern Cable Co., supra, 392 U.S. at 178, 88 S.Ct. at 2005 (generally approving FCC jurisdiction over cable if “reasonably ancillary” to its regulation of broadcast television); United States v. Midwest Video Corp., 406 U.S. 649, 92 S.Ct. 1860, 32 L.Ed.2d 390 (1972) (Midwest I) (finding rule requiring cable operators to originate local programming within FCC’s jurisdiction); FCC v. Midwest Video Corp., 440 U.S. 689, 99 S.Ct. 1435, 59 L.Ed.2d 692 (1979) (Midwest II) (striking down as beyond the FCC’s jurisdiction rules requiring cable operators to make channels available for local access). See also Capital Cities Cable, Inc. v. Crisp, supra, — U.S. -, 104 S.Ct. 2694, 81 L.Ed.2d 580 (discussing federal preemption of state laws regulating cable). However, in marked contrast to the extensive First Amendment jurisprudence developed in the context of the broadcast media, see, e.g., FCC v. League of Women Voters of California, — U.S. -, 104 S.Ct. 3106, 82 L.Ed.2d 278 (1984); Red Lion Broadcasting Co. v. FCC, 395 U.S. 367, 89 S.Ct. 1794, 23 L.Ed.2d 371 (1969), the Court has never confronted a challenge to the constitutional validity of the must-carry rules or any other regulation affecting cable television.
In the lower federal courts questions concerning the constitutionality of various cable regulations arose almost from the first moment the Commission asserted its regulatory jurisdiction over the industry. The initial challenges, which were brought when cable was in its infancy and apocalyptic visions of its impact were common, met with little success. See, e.g., Titusville Cable TV, Inc. v. United States, 404 F.2d 1187 (3d Cir.1968); Black Hills Video Corp. v. FCC, 399 F.2d 65, 69 (8th Cir.1968); Buckeye Cablevision, Inc. v. FCC, 387 F.2d 220 (D.C.Cir.1967); Carter Mountain Transmission Corp. v. FCC, 321 F.2d 359 (D.C.Cir.), cert. denied, 375 U.S. 951, 84 S.Ct. 442, 11 L.Ed.2d 312 (1963).
These decisions took one of two paths to dispose of the cable operators’ First Amendment contentions, often in a single brief paragraph. The most common approach was simply to treat cable and broadcast television as indistinguishable for purposes of First Amendment analysis. Because it was well established that broadcast media could be subject to regulation far more intrusive than the First Amendment would tolerate in other contexts, it naturally followed for these courts that cable regulation, a variant on the same theme, should be subject to no more exacting scrutiny. See, e.g., Black Hills Video Corp. v. FCC, supra, 399 F.2d at 69 (“[i]t is irrelevant * * * that [cable] systems do not themselves use the airwaves”). Other courts undertook a somewhat more discriminating analysis. They upheld the regulations only after concluding that the restraint on speech was no greater than was reasonably required to serve the important interest of preserving local broadcasting. Buckeye Cablevision, Inc. v. FCC, supra, 387 F.2d at 225.
In recent years the lower federal courts have subjected FCC regulation of cable television to a far more rigorous constitutional analysis. It is now clearly established, for example, that cable operators engage in conduct protected by the First Amendment. See, e.g., Tele-Communications of Key West, Inc. v. United States, 757 F.2d 1330, 1336 (D.C.Cir.1985); Preferred Communications, Inc. v. City of Los Angeles, 754 F.2d 1396 (9th Cir.1985); Midwest Video Corp. v. FCC, 571 F.2d 1025, 1052-1057 (8th Cir.1978), aff'd on other grounds, 440 U.S. 689, 99 S.Ct. 1435, 59 L.Ed.2d 692 (1979). Most of these courts, mindful of the Supreme Court’s repeated admonitions to be sensitive to the unique features of each medium of expression, have cautioned against reflexive invocation of the more forgiving First Amendment standards applicable to broadcast regulations. See, e.g., Preferred Communications, Inc. v. City of Los Angeles, supra, 754 F.2d at 1403; Home Box Office, Inc. v. FCC, 567 F.2d 9, 44-45 (D.C.Cir.) (per curiam), cert. denied, 434 U.S. 829, 98 S.Ct. 111, 54 L.Ed.2d 89 (1977). Indeed, in Home Box Office this court noted that earlier cases that had considered the intersection of the First Amendment and cable television regulations had incorrectly relied on Supreme Court precedent developed in the context of regulation of the broadcast media. Of particular note, the court “rejected” by name the reasoning of the Eighth Circuit in Black Hills Video Corp. v. FCC, supra, the only court to have explicitly considered the constitutionality of the must-carry rules. 567 F.2d at 45 n. 80.
At issue in Home Box Office were a number of FCC regulations limiting the programming fare a cablecaster could offer its subscribers. The Commission defended the rules by suggesting that they were necessary to assure that the various forms of pay television, including cable, not degrade the quality of programming on conventional broadcast television. As in the present controversy, the Commission suggested that the competitive injury to broadcasters would be felt most acutely by those who could not afford the more expensive video services.
The court rejected the FCC’s argument and sustained the First Amendment challenge. Concluding that the regulation should be treated as an incidental burden on speech, the court applied the test announced by the Supreme Court in United States v. O’Brien, 391 U.S. 367, 377, 88 S.Ct. 1673, 1679, 20 L.Ed.2d 672 (1968). Thus the regulations would be valid only if they served a substantial governmental interest and were no more intrusive than necessary to serve that interest. 567 F.2d at 48.
Measured against this standard, the court found the regulations wanting. They failed the first component of the test because the FCC had “not put itself in a position to know” whether its fears about the effect of cable television on local broadcasting were “real or merely * * * fanciful.” Id. at 50. The regulations failed to clear the second O’Brien hurdle because they were “grossly overbroad,” indiscriminately limiting the programming of cable systems whether or not the limits in fact served to protect the interests the rules purported to serve. Id. at 51.
In sum, the Supreme Court has never addressed the constitutional validity of the must-carry rules or of any of the analogous FCC regulations affecting cable television. To the extent the Court has considered the issue at all, it has described the question as “not frivolous.” Midwest II, 440 U.S. at 709 n. 19, 99 S.Ct. at 1446 n. 19. In the lower federal courts the initial trend was to sustain the regulations against First Amendment and due process challenges. In recent years, however, the courts have subjected governmental regulation of cable to far more exacting constitutional scrutiny. The 1977 decision in Home Box Office suggested that FCC regulation of cable could withstand analysis under the First Amendment only if the Commission proved that the regulation burdened speech only incidentally, served an important governmental interest, and was no broader than necessary to further that interest.
C. The TBS and Quincy Petitions
1. TBS. In 1980 TBS petitioned the FCC to institute rulemaking to consider deleting the must-carry rules. Petition For Rulemaking To Delete The Cable “Must Carry” Rules, October 15, 1980, Turner JA at 5-17. In support of its petition TBS argued that the regulatory environment had changed substantially since the original promulgation of the rules and that the factual premises and economic assumptions on which the rules were premised had long since been disproved or abandoned. Id. at 6-11. In addition, it suggested that the must carry-rules could not survive the constitutional test set out in Home Box Office. Id. at 11-16.
TBS’s economic grievance was straightforward. As a cable programmer, TBS is in the business of selling a package of programming to the independent cable operators, who actually deliver the cable signal in the communities they are franchised to serve. If, because of the must-carry rules, a significant number of a cable operator’s channels are occupied by the signals of local broadcasters, programmers will face artificially stiff competition for the limited number of channels that remain available for non-mandatory transmissions. If the cable system is “saturated” with must-carry signals, a phenomenon recognized by the Commission, the rules operate to deprive programmers of any opportunity at all to sell their services.
The TBS petition fell into something of a black hole. Although extensive comments were filed by interested members of the broadcast and cable industry, the FCC took no action. On March 21, 1983 TBS filed a Petition for Expedited Consideration, Turner JA at 43, again contending that the First Amendment as well as general principles of administrative law required reevaluation of the rules. When that petition too elicited no response, TBS sought review in this court, requesting that we compel the Commission to institute rulemaking or, at least, respond to its petition. Just before its brief was due the Commission moved the court to remand the record so that it could act on the TBS petition. On March 23, 1984 that motion was granted.
Two weeks later the Commission issued a three-page memorandum order in which it formally denied the petition for rulemaking. Opinion and Order, Turner JA at 1-4. Its First Amendment analysis was limited to a single, unadorned citation to the Eighth Circuit’s decision in Black Hills Video Corp. v. FCC, supra. The Commission acknowledged that the rules were “intended to compel carriage of broadcast signals in place of alternate programming that subscribers, if given their choice, might otherwise choose” and that the rules place cable programmers “on an unequal footing” because they “take[] cable channels out of the marketplace where nonbroadeast program originators might otherwise have been able to negotiate for their use.” Turner JA at 3. Nonetheless, it concluded that TBS had failed to demonstrate that the countervailing interest of protecting local television had ceased to justify continuation of the rules. Believing that rulemaking would be premature until “a more complete factual base,” id., were developed, the Commission denied TBS’s petition.
TBS now petitions for review of that denial, requesting, in the alternative, that we set aside the rule as unconstitutional or compel the Commission to institute rule-making to reconsider the rules.
2. Quincy. Quincy operates a cable television system in Quincy, Washington, a small town approximately 125 miles equidistant from Seattle and Spokane. At the origin of this proceeding Quincy had a 12-channel capacity, and all 12 channels were in use. Exercising its editorial and commercial discretion, Quincy had elected to provide its subscribers with a channel that originated on the cable system itself, the signals of the three network affiliates in Seattle, the largely duplicative signals of the three network affiliates in Spokane, a Spokane-based public broadcasting station, and four other channels offering a wide variety of public affairs and entertainment programming. Of the 12 channels, only the four Spokane stations could be received without the benefit of cable.
In 1979, after conducting a survey, Quincy came to believe that its subscribers would prefer to view three specialized cable programmers, including a 24-hour news service, instead of the three commercial Spokane stations. Although the three Spokane stations had not yet formally requested carriage (thus triggering Quincy’s “must-carry” obligation), Quincy recognized that such a request would almost certainly follow the announcement of its intention to delete the three signals from its system. Accordingly, Quincy wrote the Commission and, in effect, petitioned for a partial waiver from the force of the rules. Letter from Quincy Cable TV, Inc. to Willard Nichols, Chief of FCC Cable Television Bureau, November 19, 1979, Quincy JA at 37.
In April 1980 the Cable Television Bureau of the FCC denied Quincy’s waiver request. Letter from Willard Nichols, Chief of Cable Television Bureau, to Quincy Cable TV, Inc., April 28, 1980, Quincy JA at 1. Technically not under the compulsion of the must-carry rules until the Spokane stations requested carriage, Quincy deleted two of the stations from its system. It then began a long series of administrative appeals of the waiver denial. At every stage Quincy advanced, and the Bureau rejected, the argument that the must-carry rules violated the First Amendment to the Constitution. When Quincy continued to refuse carriage of the Spokane stations even after two of them formally requested carriage, the full Commission upheld the denial of the waiver and imposed a $5,000 “forfeiture.” Quincy Cable TV, Inc., 89 FCC2d 1128 (1982). Although Quincy did at that point reinstate the two Spokane stations, it continued to press its claim before the Commission. When the full Commission again upheld the imposition of the forfeiture, Quincy petitioned this court for review.
On the eve of oral argument the court learned of factual developments occurring during the pendency of the petition and remanded the case to the FCC for reconsideration in light of the changed circumstances. Quincy Cable TV, Inc. v. FCC, 730 F.2d 1549 (D.C.Cir.1984). On remand, the Commission ordered Quincy to supplement its filings. Believing that Quincy’s supplementary submission served only to validate its earlier position, the Commission reaffirmed its decision to deny the requested waiver and impose a $5,000 forfeiture for failure to comply with the must-carry rules. This petition ensued.
II. The First Amendment: Standard of Review
The task of determining the appropriate standard of First Amendment review to apply to the must-carry rules requires us to address two distinct questions. We begin by evaluating whether First Amendment principles governing regulation of the broadcast media should also apply to regulation of cable television. Concluding that cable television warrants a standard of review distinct from that applied to broadcasters, we next consider whether the must-carry rules merit treatment as an “incidental” burden on speech and therefore warrant analysis under the balancing test set out in United States v. O’Brien, supra, 391 U.S. at 382, 88 S.Ct. at 1681. Although our review leaves us with serious doubts about the appropriateness of invoking O’Brien’s, interest-balancing formulation, we conclude that the rules so clearly fail under that standard that we need not resolve whether they warrant a more exacting level of First Amendment scrutiny.
A. The Scarcity Rationale
It has become something of a truism to observe that “differences in the characteristics of news media justify differences in the First Amendment standards applied to them.” Red Lion Broadcasting Co. v. FCC, supra, 395 U.S. at 386, 89 S.Ct. at 1804. See also FCC v. Pacifica Foundation, 438 U.S. 726, 748, 98 S.Ct. 3026, 3040, 57 L.Ed.2d 1073 (1978); Joseph Burstyn, Inc. v. Wilson, 343 U.S. 495, 503, 72 S.Ct. 777, 781, 96 L.Ed. 1098 (1952); Tele-Communications of Key West, Inc. v. United States, supra, 757 F.2d at 1338-39. The suggestion is not that traditional First Amendment doctrine falls by the wayside when evaluating the protection due novel modes of communication. For the core values of the First Amendment clearly transcend the particular details of the various vehicles through which messages are conveyed. Rather, the objective is to recognize that those values are best served by paying close attention to the distinctive features that differentiate the increasingly diverse mechanisms through which a speaker may express his view.
This sensitivity to the uniqueness of each medium precludes facile adoption of the First Amendment jurisprudence that has developed around challenges to FCC regulation of broadcast television and radio. From the perspective of the viewer, no doubt, cable and broadcast television appear virtually indistinguishable. For purposes of First Amendment analysis, however, they differ in at least one critical respect. Unlike ordinary broadcast television, which transmits the video image over airwaves capable of bearing only a limited number of signals, cable reaches the home over a coaxial cable with the technological capacity to carry 200 or more channels.
The distinction is of fundamental significance in light of the Supreme Court’s oft-repeated suggestion that the First Amendment tolerates far more intrusive regulation of broadcasters than of other media precisely because of the inescapable physical limitations on the number of voices that can simultaneously be carried over the electromagnetic spectrum. See, e.g., FCC v. League of Women Voters of California, supra, 104 S.Ct. at 3116; see also Preferred Communications, Inc. v. City of Los Angeles, supra, 754 F.2d at 1403. These limitations, the Supreme Court observed early on, engender a peculiar irony of the broadcast medium: limited regulation, by converting aural and visual chaos into channels of effective communication, furthers rather than impedes the First Amendment’s mission. “With everybody on the air,” wrote Justice Frankfurter, “nobody could be heard. * * * [T]he radio spectrum is simply not large enough to accommodate everybody.” National Broadcasting Co. v. United States, 319 U.S. 190, 212-13, 63 S.Ct. 997, 1007-08, 87 L.Ed. 1344 (1943). Without the imposition of some governmental control, “the cacophony of competing voices” would drown each other out. Red Lion Broadcasting Co. v. FCC, supra, 395 U.S. at 376, 89 S.Ct. at 1799. Moreover, quite independent of the objective of bringing communicative order to the otherwise chaotic airwaves, the First Amendment tolerates a modest degree of government oversight of broadcast radio and television because such regulation assures that broadcasters, privileged occupants of a physically scarce resource, act in a manner consistent with their status as fiduciaries of the public’s interest in responsible use of the spectrum. Id. at 389, 89 S.Ct. at 1806.
As this and other courts have recognized, the “scarcity rationale” has no place in evaluating government regulation of cable television.
The First Amendment theory espoused in National Broadcasting Co. and reaffirmed in Red Lion Broadcasting Co. cannot be directly applied to cable television since an essential precondition of that theory — physical interference and scarcity requiring an umpiring role for government — is absent. * * *
Home Box Office, Inc. v. FCC, supra, 567 F.2d at 45. See also Preferred Communications, Inc. v. City of Los Angeles, supra, 754 F.2d at 1404; Omega Satellite Products Co. v. City of Indianapolis, 694 F.2d 119, 127 (7th Cir.1982); Note, Cable Television and the First Amendment, 71 Colum.L.Rev. 1008 (1971).
Nor do we discern other attributes of cable television that would justify a standard of review analogous to the more forgiving First Amendment analysis traditionally applied to the broadcast media. We cannot agree, for example, that the mere fact that cable operators require use of a public right of way — typically utility poles — somehow justifies lesser First Amendment scrutiny. See Omega Satellite Products Co. v. City of Indianapolis, supra, 694 F.2d at 127. The potential for disruption inherent in stringing coaxial cables above city streets may well warrant some governmental regulation of the process of installing and maintaining the cable system. But hardly does it follow that such regulation could extend to controlling the nature of the programming that is conveyed over that system. No doubt a municipality has some power to control the placement of newspaper vending machines. But any effort to use that power as the basis for dictating what must be placed in such machines would surely be invalid.
Nor, on this record, can we concur in the suggestion that the “natural monopoly characteristics” of cable create economic constraints on competition comparable to the physical constraints imposed by the limited size of the electromagnetic spectrum. Omega Satellite Products Co. v. City of Indianapolis, supra, 694 F.2d at 127; see also Berkshire Cablevision of Rhode Island, Inc. v. Burke, 571 F.Supp. 976, 985-988 (D.R.I.1983). At the outset, the “economic scarcity” argument rests on the entirely unproven — and indeed doubtful — assumption that cable operators are in a position to exact monopolistic charges. See G. Shapiro, P. Kurland & J. Mercurio, Cable-speech: The Case For First Amendment Protection 9-11 (1983). Moreover, the tendency

Question: What is the ideological directionality of the court of appeals decision?
A. conservative
B. liberal
C. mixed
D. not ascertained
Answer:

Answer: B