Opinion ID: 698642
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Accessibility to Children and Pervasiveness

Text: 121 The two additional rationales offered by the plurality opinion in Pacifica, attempting to distinguish broadcasting from other media, also fail to justify limited First Amendment protection of broadcast. The plurality found that broadcasting is uniquely accessible to children, even those too young to read. Pacifica, 438 U.S. at 749, 98 S.Ct. at 3040. 23 This characteristic, however, fails to distinguish broadcast from cable; and, notably, the rationale is absent from the Court's TBS opinion. 122 The plurality in Pacifica added another rationale which really has two components. The opinion reasoned that the broadcast media have established a uniquely pervasive presence in the lives of all Americans.... [The] material presented over the airwaves confronts the citizen, not only in public, but also in the privacy of the home. 24 Id. at 748, 98 S.Ct. at 3040. Again, the pervasiveness of its programming hardly distinguishes broadcast from cable. As noted above, cable is pervasive: a majority of television households have cable today, and this percentage has increased every year over the last two decades. See NATIONAL CABLE TELEVISION ASSOCIATION, supra, at 1-A, 2-A. The intrusiveness rationale, that the material confronts the citizen in the privacy of his or her home, likewise, does not distinguish broadcast from cable, nor account for the divergent First Amendment treatment of the two media. Finally, in light of TBS, in which the Court omitted any discussion of these rationales, the Pacifica rationales no longer can be seen to serve as justifications for reduced First Amendment protection afforded to broadcast. 123 It is relevant that Pacifica was a plurality opinion which provided a very limited holding. See 438 U.S. at 750, 98 S.Ct. at 3041 (It is appropriate ... to emphasize the narrowness of our holding.... The Commission's decision rested entirely on a nuisance rationale under which context is all-important.). The Court has subsequently emphasized that Pacifica's holding was emphatically narrow, Sable Communications of Cal., Inc. v. FCC, 492 U.S. 115, 127, 109 S.Ct. 2829, 2837, 106 L.Ed.2d 93 (1989), essentially confirming that Pacifica never was seen to be a seminal statement of constitutional law. But beyond the narrowness of the Court's decision, it seems clear now that Pacifica is a flawed decision, at least when one considers it in light of enlightened economic theory, technological advancements, and subsequent case law. The critical underpinnings of the decision are no longer present. Thus, there is no reason to uphold a distinction between broadcast and cable media pursuant to a bifurcated First Amendment analysis. 25 124