Restrictions on Cable Access Channels
Media Access Project gained a partial victory in the Supreme Court in a case challenging the 1992 Cable Act restrictions on programming on cable access channels.
Cable access channels include “leased access” channels, on which independent programmers rent airtime, and “public access” channels which are set aside for local governments, schools, and other nonprofit purposes. These channels are generally considered to be the “electronic soapbox” of the mass media. As co-counsel to the law firm of Shea and Gardner, MAP helped to represent a coalition including the ACLU Arts Project, the Alliance for Community Media and People For the American Way.
The restrictions at issue required prescreening to censor “any programming which contains obscene material, sexually explicit conduct or material soliciting or promoting unlawful conduct.” A three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit originally struck down these restrictions, but the full membership of the court reversed the panel decision.
The Supreme Court’s ruling, Denver Area Educational Technical Consortium v. FCC, found the restrictions on public access channels unconstitutional, but upheld the content restrictions on commercial “leased access” channels. The Court, thankfully, distinguished cable from advanced technologies such as the Internet. That decision will have great significance in the “Communications Decency Act” case now before the Court, that is described directly below.