Page 22 - Battleground The Media Volume 1 and 2
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À la Carte CaBle PriCing
In 2004, a coalition of public interest advocates concerned about rising cable
television bills and cultural conservatives offended by sexuality explicit TV pro-
grams joined forces in support of so-called à la carte cable, which would allow
subscribers to pay for only the channels they want to watch rather than pay set
fees for packaged channels. Cable viewers may have long wondered why they
should pay for a plethora of channels when they might only watch a few with
any regularity, but community organizations representing historically underrep-
resented groups have opposed à la carte pricing with concern for how this might
negatively impact program diversity.
ThE CoaLiTion Forms
The à la carte coalition developed after the notorious 2004 Super Bowl half-
time reveal where Justin Timberlake tore off a piece of Janet Jackson’s costume,
exposing her right breast. Soon after, Nathan Deal, the Republican congressman
from Georgia, authored an amendment to a bill that would allow cable and sat-
ellite providers to offer subscribers the choice to pay for individual channels.
The consumer advocacy groups Consumers Union and Consumer Federation of
America joined the cultural conservatives from Concerned Women for America
and Parent Television Council (PTC) in a letter of support for the amendment.
The influential PTC has made “cable choice” a central component of its cam-
paign to rid cable television of indecency. Other strategies to enforce indecency
standards for cable operators have faced legal hurdles because cable operators
have maintained First Amendment protections against such content regulations