FCC Chief Sends Cable a Warning

In his first public remarks since taking charge of the Federal Communications Commission, Chairman Kevin J. Martin on Tuesday urged cable operators to rein in racy shows before Congress clamped down.

Martin, named FCC chairman two weeks ago, told a crowd at the National Cable & Telecommunications Assn. convention here that his agency did not have the authority it exercised over conventional broadcasting to regulate the programming that streams over cable lines.

But, he warned, that could change if Congress decides to give the FCC power to police content on cable and satellite.

Asked during a brief question-and-answer session whether he wanted the industry to regulate itself, Martin replied, “Absolutely.”

He noted that complaints about indecent programming had been growing rapidly -- from a few hundred several years ago to more than a million last year.

Indecency “is a serious and significant issue,” said Martin, a 38-year-old lawyer who repeatedly pressed for tougher punishment of broadcasters during his four years as an FCC commissioner.

Nonetheless, his relatively conciliatory comments Tuesday seemed to calm cable executives, who fear tighter regulation. They long have been exempt from indecency rules because their content flows over private cable lines rather than the public airwaves.

Industry leaders want to police themselves. The cable association, as if to demonstrate the ability to do that, showcased at the Moscone Convention Center technologies that allow parents to block certain cable content from their televisions.

“Government can’t replace parents,” said U.S. Rep. F. James Sensenbrenner Jr. (R-Wis.), chairman of the House Judiciary Committee.

At the same time, however, Sensenbrenner suggested that there was room for government to play a more forceful role in cracking down on indecency.

“The criminal process, rather than the regulatory process, is the way to go to stop this,” he said.

Industry executives, feeling the heat, want to head off tighter regulation on either front.

Kyle McSlarrow, the cable and telecommunications group’s chief executive, said it was “plausible” that the industry would look at something that might resemble a family-friendly tier of programming. He added that the industry was not actively considering such a tier now.

Tiering raises a host of problems over who decides what to include in such a tier and what the criteria are. McSlarrow reiterated that the industry would look at improving the existing content ratings system and develop better ways to inform parents about using controls in set-top boxes that can block particular shows.

But cable executives know they must do something to appease Congress.

“It’s a very slippery slope to have the government meddling in what’s indecent and what’s not,” said Jim Robbins, chief executive of Cox Communications Inc.

And Glenn Britt, chairman and CEO of Time Warner Inc.’s Time Warner Cable, said the industry could do a better job of educating parents about how to use controls.

“What we can’t do is make parents take responsibility to be concerned about what their children are seeing,” Britt said.