Clear the Cable Static

After months of unsuccessful negotiation, Time Warner cable and Disney’s ABC television network took their bitter brawl public. On Monday and for much of Tuesday, Time Warner kept ABC channels off its cable systems, affecting more than 600,000 subscribers in Los Angeles and 3.5 million nationwide. It bowed to public outcry late Tuesday and put ABC back on the air. But the two media giants’ hardball, damn-the-public business practices had already revealed how little the interests of their customers matter to them.

Consumers have every right to be angry for being left out in this tangled battle over $1 billion in annual revenue and control of cable transmission. Federal regulators should take a close look at the sorry spectacle to determine where the current system failed to defend public interest.

What blacked out ABC’s shows for more than a day was the refusal of Time Warner, America’s largest cable operator, to carry Disney’s cable channels without a contract. The two media companies are fighting over how much Time Warner must pay Disney for the right to carry some of its cable channels, including Disney Channel, Toon Disney and the Soap Network. Each is defending its dominant position, Disney as a leading supplier of entertainment and media content and Time Warner as the biggest distributor of such content.

Each blames the other for the blackout and accuses the other of wrongdoing. Both have asked the Federal Communications Commission to decide who is right, an invitation the FCC should decline. Time Warner and Disney are involved in a nasty business negotiation that they, not the government, should settle. The agency’s role here should be on behalf of the public.

It is hard to summon sympathy for either side in this feud. As one communications analyst aptly put it: “It’s like the Iran-Iraq war: You root for both to lose.”

The cable companies, creatures of largely local decision-making back in the 1960s, have been lone operators in their markets. Increasingly, although not fast enough, they are not the only game in town. Consumers, unhappy with their cable company, can sign up for a satellite dish delivering roughly the same service. Nearly 20 million Americans have already done so. New technologies are being developed to deliver TV programming via telephone lines.

Still, the cable companies bring about 80% of video programming to American homes and are the leading providers of high-speed Internet services. The muscle that Time Warner flexes against such giants as Disney will be even stronger when the company merges with America Online.

What this is really all about is a struggle for control of what the general public is going to see on television and, someday, on their computers. Consumers were left bewildered and shortchanged on the sidelines. The FCC and other government agencies, as well as Congress, should open the debate on ways to better protect consumer interests.