Opinion ID: 2506
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: The Turner Litigation

Text: Shortly after the passage of the 1992 Cable Act, several cable operators mounted a First Amendment challenge to the legislation by claiming that the statute, on its face, impermissibly burdened the rights both of cable programmers, who produce television shows exclusively for cable distribution ( e.g., HBO, TNT), and of cable operators, who actually transmit the programming to consumers via coaxial cable ( e.g., Cablevision). In Turner Broadcasting System, Inc. v. FCC ( Turner I ), 512 U.S. 622, 114 S.Ct. 2445, 129 L.Ed.2d 497 (1994), the Supreme Court held that the statute's requirements were content neutral, and therefore subject to intermediate scrutiny. The Court's majority opinion announced that, at least in the abstract, the statute served three important, interrelated interests articulated by Congress in the statute's findings: (1) preserving the benefits of free, over-the-air local broadcast television, (2) promoting the widespread dissemination of information from a multiplicity of sources, and (3) promoting fair competition in the market for television programming. Id. at 662, 114 S.Ct. 2445. The majority, however, concluded that deficienc[ies] in the record prevented it from determining whether the statute was sufficiently tailored to further those interests without substantially burdening protected speech and remanded for further proceedings. Id. at 667-68, 114 S.Ct. 2445. Significantly, the majority noted that the district court had not addressed whether the language of the market modification provision, with its references to the value of localism and to stations provid[ing] news coverage of issues of concern to such community, altered the content-neutrality of the statute. Id. at 643 n. 6, 114 S.Ct. 2445 (quoting 47 U.S.C. § 534(h)(1)(C)(ii)). The Court did not address this point. Id. In a dissent joined by three other justices, Justice O'Connor, relying in part on the language of the market modification provision, wrote that the must-carry regulation was content-based, and thus subject to strict scrutiny, such that it could only be justified by a compelling governmental interest and would have to be narrowly tailored to achieve its intended purpose. Id. at 680, 114 S.Ct. 2445. In 1997, with a more fully developed record before it, the Supreme Court held that the must-carry provisions further important governmental interests and that the provisions did not violate the First Amendment because they did not burden substantially more speech than necessary to further those interests. Turner Broad. Sys., Inc. v. FCC ( Turner II ), 520 U.S. 180, 185, 117 S.Ct. 1174, 137 L.Ed.2d 369 (1997). None of the opinions in Turner II specifically mentioned or cited the market modification provision.