Cable TV Industry to Appeal Ruling on Reserving Commercial Channels

Cable television operators will appeal a federal court ruling requiring one-third of their channels to be reserved for commercial and public TV broadcasters, an industry spokeswoman said Friday.

The ruling issued late Thursday upholds part of a cable re-regulation law, enacted by Congress last year, that cable operators and their programmers had challenged, saying it trampled on their First Amendment free speech rights.

A three-judge panel of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia ruled 2 to 1 against the cable industry’s complaint.

Judge Thomas Penfield Jackson said Congress was using its antitrust and regulatory powers to promote fair trade practices in the market of video signals, “not a market in speech.”

Judge Stanley Sporkin concurred with Jackson and said cable operators and programmers challenged the law “not because their freedom of speech is seriously threatened, but because their profits are.”

But Judge Stephen F. Williams dissented, saying: “In requiring cable systems to carry a special group of competing speakers, Congress directly, not incidentally, restricts the cable operators’ exercise of editorial discretion.”

Peggy Laramie of the National Cable Television Assn. said, “We still believe our case will prevail and we will pursue appropriate appeals.”