Submission + - A la Carte pricing violates 1st Ammendment
Murrdox writes: According to Randolph May, a government mandate of "a la carte" pricing for cable companies violates the 1st Ammendment. "Mandatory a la carte almost certainly will diminish the amount and diversity of programming available to cable subscribers, a result at odds with First Amendment values."
May then offers up a straw-man argument, saying that forcing a la carte pricing for cable companies is similar to forcing The Washington Post sell parts of their paper separately. "readers should not be required to pay for the news section, which, with a war on, contains some "violent" content, or the style section, which contains some content that may be considered "indecent.""
May approaches a la carte from the sole perspective that it is being used as a government censorship tool to keep violent channels out of family homes. What Martin fails to mention is that if cable companies offered a la carte pricing, that does not force them to not include channels, and families can still opt-in to whichever channels they wish.
It also does not necessarily preclude cable companies from continuing to offer bundled channel packages, for those T.V. watchers who want to still have a huge selection of channels.
May then offers up a straw-man argument, saying that forcing a la carte pricing for cable companies is similar to forcing The Washington Post sell parts of their paper separately. "readers should not be required to pay for the news section, which, with a war on, contains some "violent" content, or the style section, which contains some content that may be considered "indecent.""
May approaches a la carte from the sole perspective that it is being used as a government censorship tool to keep violent channels out of family homes. What Martin fails to mention is that if cable companies offered a la carte pricing, that does not force them to not include channels, and families can still opt-in to whichever channels they wish.
It also does not necessarily preclude cable companies from continuing to offer bundled channel packages, for those T.V. watchers who want to still have a huge selection of channels.
