Court OKs Blocking Adult TV Fare

Sexually explicit TV channels such as Playboy Television and Spice Entertainment will be blocked from broadcasting until after 10 p.m. on most cable systems under a new federal law that was upheld by the Supreme Court on Monday.

In a one-line order, the justices said that the law is constitutional and lifted an injunction that has kept it from being enforced.

The ruling should please parents and others who have complained that programs on these sexually oriented channels, though scrambled, can be seen and heard by their children on their TV sets.

But the law also means that millions of adults who subscribe to these premium channels or pay-per-view broadcasts will be unable to see them except in late night hours. The channels themselves likely will suffer economically. The Playboy Entertainment Group estimates that the programming restriction would cut its annual revenue of $4.5 million by as much as one-fourth.

The new law, included in the Telecommunications Act of 1996, deals with what industry buffs refer to as the problem of “signal bleed.”

Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) sponsored the measure directed at sexually explicit channels two years ago in response to complaints from parents in San Diego and Orange counties who came home to discover their children watching fuzzy images of X-rated programs.

Her amendment said that cable operators must “fully block the video and audio portion” of channels “primarily dedicated to sexually oriented programming” on the TV sets of nonsubscribers, or alternatively restrict this programming to between the hours of 10 p.m. and 6 a.m., when children are presumed not to be watching.

Officials for the cable industry said that most systems will be forced to take the second option. Though the technology exists to completely block premium channels from homes that do not subscribe, it is new and quite costly, the officials said.

“We’ll abide by the law and, if it says after 10 p.m., that’s when we will offer Spice as a pay-per-view option,” said Bill Rosendahl, senior vice-president of Century Communications in Los Angeles. “This puts the burden on the [cable] operators and it means we’ll have to take a look at the [blocking] technology.”

In its brief, the Playboy Entertainment Group told justices that “all the major cable operators have announced they will adopt the time-channeling option if the [law] becomes effective.”

Feinstein hailed the court ruling. “Parents have enough to do without having to monitor hundreds of cable channels to see what X-rated material is coming into their home,” she said. “Nothing in this law prevents cable operators from selling their programs to willing adult customers. It simply requires them to take the necessary steps to prevent their product from spilling over to an unwilling audience.”

Lawyers for Playboy and Spice Entertainment had urged the high court to declare the law unconstitutional on 1st Amendment grounds or at least to block its enforcement pending a trial. They argued that it was not necessary or fair to block their premium channels for 16 hours a day from the two-thirds of U.S. households that do not include minors.

Instead, the justices issued a summary ruling in the case (Playboy Entertainment vs. United States, 96-1034), which affirms the judgment of a federal court in Delaware. A three-judge panel there found the law constitutional in November.

Clinton administration lawyers had asked the court to affirm the judgment so the law could take effect.

In the opinion last year that upheld the law, Judge Jane R. Roth characterized the partially scrambled images broadcast into the homes of nonsubscribers by the sex channels “as an offensive pollutant” in millions of American homes.

The ruling in the cable TV case followed oral arguments before the Supreme Court last week on how to regulate pornography on the Internet, as well as a decision upholding a California law barring sexually explicit publications in news boxes. All involve the clash between the 1st Amendment rights of adults and the public’s interest in shielding children from pornography.

Over the years, the Supreme Court repeatedly has ruled that so-called indecent programming on radio and broadcast television can be restricted, if necessary, to protect children. More recently, and without much explanation, the justices have applied those precedents to cases involving cable TV.

A New York attorney representing Spice Entertainment said the court’s ruling will probably force the cable industry to move faster in adopting new scrambling technology.

“We are in all in favor of full scrambling. We want our programs to be available to adults who pay for them but we don’t want them to be available to minors,” said the attorney, Daniel Barsky.