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They're Back: FCC Looks to Family Tiers

Cable World, Nov 7, 2005

FCC Chairman Kevin Martin wants to hoist family tiers on cable operators. Doesn't he realize they won't work?

By John P. Ourand

The scourge of family tiers just won't go away.

While regulatory matters in Washington, D.C., can change hourly, late October scuttlebutt had chairman Kevin Martin pushing Comcast and Time Warner Cable to adopt voluntary family tiers as a condition for the FCC's approval of their Adelphia purchase.

Martin believes that Comcast and Time Warner Cable are so powerful that if they roll out family tiers the rest of the industry will follow eventually.

The FCC did not provide an official comment by deadline.

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But Martin's affinity for family tiers is not new. He's gained a reputation as an advocate of strict indecency standards during his 4-year tenure on the Commission.

Cable finds itself in the crosshairs of a debt Martin wants to repay to religious conservatives, who strongly supported his candidacy to become FCC chairman. He's not made a secret of his desire to reward their support with stronger indecency regulations. (Add in the fact that Martin's planning to become a dad for the first time this month, and you wind up with something of a perfect storm for indecency regulation.)

The Old Potomac Two-Step

Over the summer and into early fall, cable tried to get Congress to deal with the indecency issue via legislation. It urged the chairman of the Senate Commerce Committee Ted Stevens (R-AK) and ranking member Daniel Inouye (D-HI) to apply broadcast-type indecency standards to basic cable programming. But in a bit of Washington politics, cable made clear that it would not officially support the bill-but it wouldn't actively oppose it either.

Ultimately that strategy failed, as the Senate Commerce Committee has no real plans to take up indecency, although there might be hearings.

So that puts cable back where it was two years ago, soon after Janet Jackson's nipple exposure: MSOs pushing cable's channel-blocking technology. A new wrinkle is cable's "Take Control" public service campaign that launched in April.

"Our industry remains committed to airing public service announcements, holding community events and communicating directly with customers about how they can manage their home-TV viewing environment," NCTA president/CEO Kyle McSlarrow said in a statement prepared for this story. "At the same time, we acknowledge that policymakers continue to examine ways to protect families from viewing unwanted content."

Cox's soon-to-be president Pat Esser also toed the industry line when he says his company is responsible for providing the tools to block objectionable programming, not for deciding what consumers can and can't watch.

"Our customers tell us that they do not want us making those choices for them," Esser says. "They want to make those choices. We hear that over and over again."

Interestingly consumers seem to care very little about indecency. Aside from the coordinated campaigns of groups like the Parents TV Council, few want indecency regulations. That's one of the reasons cable's push in Congress failed: constituents generally aren't calling for indecency legislation, Democrat and Republican Hill sources say.

Even cable subscribers appear lukewarm on indecency. Despite NCTA's "Take Control" PSAs, CSRs aren't getting many calls asking about parental control features. CSRs from Comcast, Time Warner Cable and Cox told us this summer they're getting only "the occasional question" on parental control features.

Be Careful What You Wish For

Should Martin prevail upon Comcast and Time Warner to adopt family tiers, cable operators would face a mess in deciding what channels should be included on a family tier. MTV, for example, definitely would not be on a family tier because some of its shows seem to encourage binge drinking and promiscuity, right? Well, couldn't MTV convince operators that it should be on a family tier because it promotes more social causes than most other cable networks?

What about Cartoon Network? A channel dedicated to cartoons should be on anybody's list of "family" networks, shouldn't it? But what about its highly rated Adult Swim block? Should that be on a "family" tier? Probably not.

Technology Industry

They're Back: FCC Looks to Family Tiers

Cable World, Nov 7, 2005

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