So which government should keep it’s nose out. The federal government? Before they stepped in all the local governments were making their own (sometimes very unreasonable) demands. I had a neighbor that invested in cable systems back in the 70′s and it wasn’t pretty. The public clearly wants government control of television, and we are, after all, talking about public assets (ROW, broadcast and DBS spectrum, etc…). If you don’t believe this, wait until we get closer to 02/09, and watch all the crazy commentary.

I either have to go with a complete private ownership model (property rights) and all government hands off, or democratic public regulation. The middle ground of some regulation is good and other is “morally” wrong seems impossible to defend without resorting to silly arguments about discriminating against special interest channels.

ESPN, of course, has a bright future regardless of what the regulatory regime looks like because people love sports and pay anything for it. But the same may not be true for niche-oriented programming that serves diverse communities.

Again, the only way many of those channels remain economically viable and get carried on cable and satellite systems today is because they are bundled alongside many other options. If our government forces the abrogation of those contracts and business arrangements in the name of “cleaning up cable” or “lowering bills,” the results could be disasterous in terms of the diversity we see on pay TV today.

The reason that the proverbial “500-channel universe” is now a reality is because–whether by accident or intention design–we have stumbled onto a marketplace model of content delivery that promotes and maximizes programming diversity. We should consider that fact carefully before allowing our government to come in and take a regulatory sledgehammer to such a successful business model.

Moreover, speaking strictly from a the persepctive of a limited government-oriented libertarian, BY WHAT RIGHT DOES THE GOVERNMENT MANDATE ANY OF THIS? For God’s sake, we’re talking about television here! We don’t have any inalienable right to cable or satellite TV on terms dictated by federal bureaucrats. And that’s especially the case when those bureaucrats are seeking to regulate to “clean up” (i.e., CENSOR) pay TV.

The bigger HD gets, the more of a barrier expensive cameras will become for small, low budget operations, and the more web-based distribution will make sense.