How C-Span is Getting Screwed

...But Congress has been playing favorites in the television marketplace and, in so doing, has begun to stifle its own voice...

...Seeing an opportunity in this new definition, the owners of an unused broadcast license issued to serve Eugene, Oregon, sold their license to the owners of the start-up Warner Brothers’ Network...

...FROM FRANK RICH’S“ JOURNAL” cOLUMN THE NEW YORK TiMES, FEBRUARY 5, 1997 the public from which they make billions of dollars...

...So several million cable subscribers are now able to watch a couple of extra shopping channels, or the same commercial network program on two or three different channels...

...In the same ’92 cable bill, Congress came up with another rule called “retransmission consent...

...Money drives the American engine, in television and elsewhere...

...Public interest” is a much-vaunted American ideal, but when you seek simply to operate in the public interest, without making or spending big bucks, you get ignored...

...But prodded by “big guys”-regional home-shopping networks and others-the FCC proposed new rules that would have dramatically lowered the rates cable operators could charge to lease these channels...

...It gets worse...

...The idea, successfully lobbied by the broadcast industry, was to preserve local broadcasting as cable’s market dominance grew...

...And it had an unintended consequence: 3 million homes lost all or part of the C-SPAN networks...

...And although they are not-for-profit, public broadcasters also get plenty of attention when they sign big underwriting contracts from corporate America, buy expensive programming series, and seek operating funds from Congress or their viewers...

...This “must carry” rule might sound reasonable, but it put the federal government into the programming business-a questionable action on First Amendment grounds...

...In current Madison Avenue parlance: They’re just doing the right thing...

...After all, cable operators are in business to make money, too...

...But the government certainly hasn’t made it easy...

...Our networks were created by just the kind of public-service initiative the government purports to foster: Without prodding by government mandate, cable television leaders created C-SPAN in 1979 to operate entirely within the private sector as a nonprofit company...

...Despite a national communications policy to regulate in the public interest, our lawmakers and regulators have taken such a narrow view of the PEG concept that here again, the C-SPAN networks are denied access to an audience...

...The idea was to allow even the “little guys” access to cable systems...

...Yet, despite the examples cited here, most systems have juggled channel lineups to retain C-SPAN, even in the face of “must carry,” retransmission consent, leased access, rate regulation, PEG requirements-and whatever else the government has thrown at them...

...In March 1996, the FCC presented us with yet another unintended, and still potentially serious, threat...

...An Accidental Victim Greed is the culprit BY BRIAN LAMB You would think the folks in Congress, the FCC, and other agencies in Washington would like C-SPAN...

...Our experience in Portland, Oregon, demonstrates another perverse aspect of the rule: the way it has stretched the definition of a marketplace to give broadcast stations special access to communities that used to be beyond their reach...

...said would spur marketplace competition to give consumers ‘the benefits of lower prices, better quality, and greater choices in their telephone and cable systems.’ But conglomerates, not competition, now drive TV: prices are higher, choice is less, and ‘better quality’ means more Murdoch and less CSpan...

...Most everything we cover is televised from beginning to end, without interruptions or commentary...

...Most cable systems are required by franchise agreements with the towns and cities they serve to set aside channels for use by the public at large, by educational institutions, and by the government...

...It seems that, according to the federal government, C-SPAN did not quahfy as a competing news channel because we’re not supported by paid advertising, don’t carry sports news, and don’t report on the weather...

...Not so...

...Some chose to drop C-SPAN...

...House and Senate...

...We thought it would encourage more people to carry our public-service programming, but what it has really done is make C-SPAN nearly invisible to federal rule writers...

...Left to compete in a truly free marketplace, C-SPAN has shown in the past that it can flourish...

...Obviously, our network must be doing something wrong to be so disliked, or simply ignored by the federal government...

...Since they were reserved to serve the public interest, dark PEG channels would seem to present an opportunity for the non-profit C-SPAN or CSPAN2 to step in-especially in the markets where operators have had to cut back on our programming...

...By mandating preferential treatment for broadcast channels and commercial-station owner groups through “must carry” and “retransmission consent,” the government has made C-SPAN-and other cable networks-second class citizens in the world of television...

...Commercial broadcasters get free licenses from the government for airwaves belonging to ‘This week marks the first anniversary of President Clinton’s signing of [the Telecommunications Act] he...

...These so-called PEG channels are often used for their intended purposes...

...Robert Packwood’s constituents might have been interested in following our coverage of his ethics troubles...

...Over the next 18 years, these same leaders have contributed more than $230 million to CSPAN, and have not taken a penny of taxpayer money to support the project...

...Congress and the regulators didn’t intend it, but their idea of retransmission consent helped the big broadcasters create a slew of new channels by guaranteeing special access for services like Rupert Murdoch‘s f/X, ABCIDisney’s ESPNZ, Scripps Howard’s Home and Garden TV, and Microsoft/General Electric’s MSNBC...

...The merger-enhanced Time WarnerTurner and Tele-Communications Inc...

...but just as often they remain dark or are rarely used...

...Nevertheless, the new rules-announced in early February-still put our network at risk of being dropped or cut back...

...And they’ve done this even though C-SPAN, unlike most other programming services, costs them money and offers no chance to recoup their investment through advertising sales...

...But this is more than an issue of wounded pride at having been defined right out of the news business...

...As Gene Kimmelman of Consumers Union says, ‘Now that stock prices are falling, cable companies will do anything to boost earnings.’ Public service or even public relations may stand little chance against the imperatives of the bottom line...

...These examples are not the whole story...

...Retransmission consent gave broadcasters the right to charge cable operators high fees for the privilege of carrying programming that the operators had previously been broadcasting for free (apart from paying low copyright fees...

...So, what does C-SPAN want...

...With limited channel capacity, a number of cable companies were forced to drop channels to comply with the rule...

...now control what roughly half of America’s cable subscribers see...

...At a time when the major commercial networks are being prodded by Congress to serve the public interest with just 3 hours of chldren’s BRIAN LAMB is the CEO of C-SPAN...

...To make room for the new network, C-SPAN25 coverage of the Senate was dropped from 96,000 Portland homes-just at the time many of Sen...

...Only after strong protest from the cable industry did the FCC change its direction...

...In pursuit of some vision of managed competition, the FTC ordered Time Warner to place a 24-hour news channel on some of its cable systems as a competitor to its newly acquired CNN...

...WBN promptly boosted the existing station’s signal, and qualified for “must carry” status on Portland cable systems-100 miles away...

...But they’ve lost all or part of their round-the-clock eye on Washington...

...When the government prescribes how channels should be allocated-a bit like telling a bookstore which books it should sell-it automatically handicaps networks like ours that don’t hold a broadcast license, and therefore don’t benefit from such mandates...

...Just as significantly, they set aside one or two of the highly-sought-after channels on their cable systems to carry C-SPAN...

...No favors from the government, but no artificial impediments, either...

...Network affiliates were required to add nearby affiliates with programming nearly identical to stations they already carried...

...We’re inured by now to our media giants being greedy, but when a democracy’s flow of information is being restricted, something far more important than our monthly cable bill is at stake...

...In this context, the cable industry’s continuing support of the C-SPAN networks is worth noting...

...programming per week, it’s nothing short of ironic that the government keeps throwing regulatory roadblocks in our path...

...But the new law allowed the networks to play a complex game of chicken with the cable operators: In exchange for waiving the new fees, broadcasters insisted that cable operators hand over scarce channel capacity to carry new programming channels that broadcasters would create-regardless of whether there was any demand for them...

...This virtually guarantees that those networks will get lots of attention-from the government and the public-both when they resist airing programs in the public interest, and again when they actually agree to do so...

...Most recently, in trying to manage the merger of Time Warner and Turner Broadcasting, the government--this time the Federal Trade Commission-again seemed to have blinders on to C-SPANS style of news and public affairs...

...Among the most egregious examples: the 1992 resurrection of an old rule requiring cable operators to carry local broadcast stations on their systems...

...By the FTc’s standards, the early HuntleyBrinkley reports, lacking both sports and weather, wouldn’t have been considered ‘hews” either...

...In today’s society, is our network considered misguided because we never sought to create any wealth for anybody...

...Cable systems are mandated by federal law to reserve a portion of their channel space for lease to all comers (the infamous cable-access channels...

...Did we err in trying to keep our programming costs in line, spending conservatively in a ‘big-money business...

...While cable operators naturally had no desire to pay the new fees, the networks were equally unwilling to pull their programming off the air in retaliation-after all, distribution is the name of the game...

...It’s hard to believe that this is the kind of public interest the government originally had in mind...

...In Iowa, home of the quadrennial presidential caucuses, eight small towns lost their access to C-SPAN because of retransmission consent deals that brought them Murdoch‘s f/X channel...

...Unless the owner of those systems can find the capital to increase their channel capacity in the next couple of years, the residents of Algona, Audubon, Belmond, Centerville, Hampton, Laurens, Osage, and Pocahontas won’t be able to watch when our “Road to the White House” series covers the Iowa caucuses in 2000...

...Despite that, it has been an upside-down world for C-SPAN whenever government policy is at issue-whether Democrats or Republicans were in charge...

...What could it be...

...C-SPAN2 remains unavailable to this part of Portland to this day...

...Our two networks, C-SPAN and C-SPAN2, provide millions of Americans with round-the-clock, ad-free coverage of news and public affairs events, including the floor proceedings of the U.S...

...The result would have meant C-SPAN being pushed off many cable systems in favor of infomercials, shopping channels and gambling, and even programming like the “Blue Revue,” which uses leased access to sell phone sex over cable systems in the San Diego market-all sanctioned by the government’s leased-access rules...

...Here’s how it happened: “Must carry” forced systems to carry broadcast stations-even when hardly anybody watched them-just because they had a license to operate in a nearby area...

...FCC rules are such that, once a PEG channel has been set aside, it remains set aside at least until the cable operator’s franchise is up for renewal...

...The FTC’s ruling meant that C-SPAN was faced with yet another competitor for limited channel space, thanks solely to Washington’s meddling...

...There’s more...

...You don’t find them or other cable companies ejecting sex or shopping or pay-per-view channels to make room for C-Span 2, let alone for outspoken, independent programming that might be produced by some minority voice not owned by themselves, Disney, Fox, Viacom or GE...

...Too bad that 1.5 million of the cable homes that got those channels got them at the expense of CSPAN and C-SPAN2...

...But taken together, they account for C-SPAN or CSPAN2 -and sometimes both-being cut back, interrupted, or dropped from almost 9 million households over the past five years...

...No, the government doesn’t hate C-SPAN...

...Somehow, our network just keeps falling between the cracks when the rules are written...

...For C-SPAN, the ’90s have become the decade of recurring regulatory roadblocks...

...Apparently C-SPAN’S great mistake has been to attempt to serve the public without asking the government for either permission or money...

...From our first day of operation, C-SPAN programming has easily met the government’s publicinterest standard (the general legal standard radio and television broadcasters must meet in order to keep their right to use the public’s airwaves...

...Every year, we transmit over 17,000 hours of programming, all aimed at informing viewers about our American system...

...The answer, as it so often is in our society, is money...