Supreme Court Hears Cable Dispute : Media: The industry wants the court to strike down ‘must-carry’ rules that require systems to use local broadcasts.

The Supreme Court heard arguments Wednesday in a highly significant First Amendment dispute between the cable TV industry and local broadcasters, but the justices gave little hint as to how they will rule.

Lawyers for the cable operators are asking the court to strike down a 1992 law requiring them to carry the signals of nearly all local broadcast stations.

They contend that the requirement violates their free-press rights to carry only the programming they choose.

The so-called must-carry rule “overrides all editorial discretion,” said H. Bartow Farr, representing Turner Broadcasting System in its challenge to the Cable TV Consumer Protection Act.

But U.S. Solicitor Gen. Drew Days countered that in passing the law, Congress had responded properly to clear evidence that cable operators now hold a life-or-death grip over local broadcasters. Last year, about 60% of American households subscribed to cable TV, but they generally had only one choice of cable company.

This local cable monopoly creates a “bottleneck” that, if unregulated, could permit these operators to choke off independent local TV stations, Days said. If a cable operator drops a local station, the station instantly loses more than half its viewers and probably will go out of business, he said.

Last year, a U.S. appellate court here upheld the law, deeming it “economic regulation” that was well within the power of Congress.

But the justices questioned Days more skeptically, suggesting that a majority might strike down the law as unconstitutional.

The law creates “a favored class of speakers,” said Justice Sandra Day O’Connor, by demanding that a cable operator give preference to a local broadcast station, when doing so might edge out an even more desirable national program.

The cable operators have a key precedent on their side. In 1974, the court struck down as unconstitutional a Florida law that gave disgruntled newspaper readers a “right to reply” to stories or editorials that mentioned them. Under the First Amendment, the government cannot compel “a newspaper to print that which it would not otherwise print,” the court said in Miami Herald vs. Tornillo.

Comparing themselves to newspapers, the cable companies said they cannot be compelled to carry certain stations.