SACHS ANNOUNCES INITIATIVE TO ENSURE AVAILABILITY OF CONTROLS
NCTA Pres. Robert Sachs announced a new cable initiative to ensure every customer of a leading MSO who wants parental controls will have them. The country’s top 10 MSOs agreed to give free set-top boxes equipped with parental controls, or install video “traps” at the poles, to oblige any customer who requests controls and doesn’t already have that technology available to them. Sachs said it was unclear how much the initiative would cost, but each company would bear the cost for its customers. The commitment by MSOs serving 85% of U.S. cable households “fills a gap identified by members of Congress for those households that want to block programming which they deem inappropriate for their family’s viewing but don’t have the equipment or want to pay extra to do so,” Sachs told a conference of the Cable TV Public Affairs Assn. (CTPAA).
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Sachs estimated a little more than 1/2 the universe of cable customers already has boxes equipped with the controls, or a TV set carrying a V-chip. That would leave less than 50% of cable customers lacking the technology. “The law clearly permits cable companies to charge for providing blocking equipment. And there are very real costs involved, so today’s voluntary action goes well beyond what the law requires,” Sachs said.
But Time Warner Cable CEO Glenn Britt told us he didn’t expect his company’s cost to be heavy. “People are not champing at the bit” for blocking technologies, he told us. For those who do want it, Britt said, the company can install analog boxes, digital ones without all the functionality, or “traps” at the poles outside customer homes. Asked whether TWC might be amenable to creating family friendly tiers -- something several FCC commissioners have endorsed -- Britt said that was a step toward an a la carte world, something he is adamantly against. During a luncheon interview with C- SPAN’s Brian Lamb, Britt said a la carte would drive many channels out of business. He likened the idea to someone buying a newspaper and asking for a partial refund because he doesn’t read the sports pages. “I think it would undermine the whole business,” he said.
Sachs said after his presentation that installing new equipment would be more technologically feasible than offering tiers because not all systems have been fully upgraded to digital. Sachs repeated that cable networks have reaffirmed their commitment to apply TV rating and content labels, to put the appropriate rating icon on-screen at the beginning of every program and to encode their ratings in programming with codes that can be interpreted by a V-chip equipped set.
“No one wants policy-makers to have to choose between protecting children or preserving First Amendment rights. So if we, as an industry, actively promote the choices and controls available to cable consumers, there will be no need for anyone to do so,” Sachs said. Although it was the “halftime fiasco” of CBS’s broadcast of the Super Bowl that spurred a whirlwind of legislative and regulatory activity, “let’s not kid ourselves, the public outrage was about a lot more than Janet Jackson’s highly inappropriate performance,” Sachs said, and cable was affected by that outrage. He said cable “recognizes and accepts fully its responsibility to do more.”
During another session at the conference, CEA spokesman Jeff Josephs joked his association had also made an announcement, that all consumers have an off switch on their devices. Speaking seriously, he said CEA and its member companies are “very, very concerned about the current environment” in Washington and hope lawmakers don’t see fit to impose regulations on equipment manufacturers to solve the problem of indecency and violence in programming content.