Articles by Adam Thierer 
Senior Fellow in Technology & Innovation at the R Street Institute in Washington, DC. Formerly a senior research fellow at the Mercatus Center at George Mason University, President of the Progress & Freedom Foundation, Director of Telecommunications Studies at the Cato Institute, and a Fellow in Economic Policy at the Heritage Foundation.
In an interview with The Wall Street Journal today (p. A4), FCC Chairman Kevin Martin said he might consider “a la carte” mandates on cable and satellite operators as a possible way to clean up content on pay TV. He told the Journal, “I saw a quote recently where one person said ‘I can call up and order HBO, I don’t understand why I can’t call up and cancel any of my cable… programming.’ I think that there could be additional control over that.”
Well, before the Chairman rushes to impose a sweeping new regulatory regime on cable based on what he heard one guy say in the papers, I would hope he would consider what more rigorous research has revealed regarding the potential pitfalls of a la carte mandates. He might start by re-reading the report his own agency issued on the subject just 8 months ago. He should also take a second look at an important report issued by the General Accountability Office in October 2004.
These government reports, like the vast majority of serious academic reports penned on this topic, came to the conclusion that a la carte regulation would be devastating for the industry and consumers alike. (I should point out that I filed comments in the FCC proceeding as did my colleagues Randy May and Tom Lenard.)
Here’s why a la carte mandates, while sounding so good on the surface, would really be a disaster for consumers in the end:
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Well, for once I find myself in perfect agreement with Democratic FCC Commissioner Jonathan Adelstein about something. In a Wall Street Journal (pg. B4) story today about FCC prohibitions on cell phone use during airline flights, Adelstein argues that, “Our job is to determine if it’s technologically feasible and safe. Our job is not to decide etiquette. We’re not Emily Post.”
Amen brother! It’s one thing for the FCC to determine the technical standards for spectrum uses and users, and then even adjudicate interference disputes among those uses. It is quite another matter for the agency to go a step further and determine whether a certain use of the spectrum is socially acceptable.
Now don’t get me wrong, I detest the idea of cell phone chatter on long airline flights as much as the next person. The idea of a gabby jerk in the seat next to me screaming into their cell phone to talk above the already noisy jet engines, just makes me cringe.
But that doesn’t mean this should be a matter of federal concern. Indeed, self-regulatory experiments by private carriers would make a lot of sense here. Understanding the frustration (perhaps even violence) that cell phone gabbing in the cabin could induce, most airlines will put policies in place to limit cell phone use.
For example, certainly flights could be designated as “cell phone free” or “cell phone limited.” I can imagine that in an effort to appeal to many business travelers on high-volume routes (like NYC to DC or Chicago to Atlanta), some airlines would offer a few morning and evening flights that allowed unlimited cell phone use, while prohibiting calls on most other flights.
Alternatively, on larger aircraft, we might see the return of an in-flight lounge area (although probably much smaller than the ones of the past). Perhaps these cell phone lounges would be no bigger than current airplane bathrooms (perhaps they would be the bathrooms!) Regardless, these are just a few options that carriers could explore. They are certainly preferable to a federal etiquette regulatory regime for cell phone usage.
Senator Hillary Clinton (D-NY) proposed new legislation on Thursday that would make it a federal offense for retailers to sell a minor a video game that includes violent or sexual themes. Her bill would impose a $5000 fine on any retailer that sold a youngster a game that was classified as mature or violent under the video game industry’s voluntary ratings system.
The Clinton bill might best be thought of as a “hanging the industry with its own rope” regulatory scheme. That is, her bill would hijack the industry’s voluntary ratings system and then use it against them (and retailers) should someone choose to sell a game with mature or violent themes to someone under the age of 18.
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There’s been a debate raging in Washington recently about the future of public broadcasting. Paul Farhi of The Washington Post provides some details of this catfight and yesterday’s Senate hearing on the matter in his column today.
I don’t want to get into all questions about “bias” on PBS or NPR, although I think there’s a lot less of it than others do. Indeed, I think there is a great deal of informative and entertaining programming on public television and radio that is not “biased” at all. I especially enjoy NPR’s “Morning Edition” and “All Things Considered” as well as PBS’s “News Hour with Jim Lehrer.”
Are there some biased shows or personalities on public TV and radio? Of course there are. But I don’t really think there’s any more bias on public broadcasting outlets than any other media outlet these days. And I don’t have any problem with the tilt of the bias being a little more to the left than to the right on these outlets. There’s no way any of us could ever agree on what constitutes “perfect” balance TV or radio. Moreover, attempts to strike such a balance–even for public broadcasting–ultimately run afoul of the First Amendment since it interferes with the editorial discretion of the programmers. Finally, in our world of media abundance, there are plenty of other good outlets to which we can turn if we find any one outlet overly biased.
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Beware lowly citizens of Planet Cyberspace, an ominous new threat lurks in your midst. Its name is Google and this beast won’t rest until it has taken control of all our minds. At least that’s what Wired columnist Adam Penenberg would lead us to believe.
In a June 23rd article entitled “Beware the Google Threat,” Penenberg spins a dark and foreboding tale of “big, bad” Google’s apparent sinister plot to take over the world and control our minds. You think I’m kidding? Well, let’s dissect Penenberg’s apocalyptic article in detail.
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I know everyone in the high-tech world is waiting for the Grokster and Brand X decisions to be handed down but, in my opinion, the most important decision of this Supreme Court term was handed down today in the property rights / eminent domain case of Kelo v. New London. The result was an unmitigated disaster for property rights.
The 5-4 decision (which went the wrong way thanks to Justice Kennedy) basically said that under the banner of “economic development,” the State may take private property whenever it wishes. This is a disastrous result for small land owners in particular since they will no longer have any reasonable protection from local governments who seek to re-zone certain communities to appease various special interests. But I should also point out that this decision, the third bad decision for property rights this term, could also come back to haunt communications and media companies, and others in the high-tech sector. That’s because this Court has just made it infinitely easier for the State to use various “public use” rationales for taking property of any variety. We’ve spent that last decade fighting about the rights of telecom and cable companies in the battle over forced access, and decisions like
Kelo won’t make it any easier for those companies to defend the property right they are entitled to in the networks they develop.
Anyway, I could go on at length about what a disaster this decision is, but I will instead just cut-and-paste some of the remarkably powerful wording that Justice O’Connor used in her dissent, which was joined by Chief Justice Rehnquist, Justice Scalia, and Justice Thomas. At least these four justices still appreciate the importance of the Constitution, the Fifth Amendment, and property rights.
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I’m sure that the pro-municipalization movement will be buzzing today about the front-page Wall Street Journal story entitled, “Phone Giants Are Lobbying Hard to Block Towns’ Wireless Plans.” But I hope those pro-muni forces also flip back to the B section of today’s Journal and read Walt Mossberg’s Personal Technology column on the latest developments in private wireless broadband. And they should also check out a very similar report by New York Times technology columnist David Pogue on page C1 of today’s paper.
In these two articles, Mossberg and Pogue review the new wireless broadband technologies coming to market today and point out that speeds are getting much better and coverage is growing rapidly. For example, Verizon’s $1 billion investment in its EV-DO wireless broadband network is finally bearing fruit. Speeds are 400-700 kilobits per second and coverage is available in 32 major metropolitan areas. And out-of-market coverage is provided too, albeit at slower speeds. Rivals like are rushing to build out similar networks and get newer, faster, more capable devices to market too.
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I have an essay on the Tech Central Station website today entitled, “What Ever Happened to the Big Media Boogeyman?” In the piece, I note that just a few years ago, everyone was running around making Chicken Little predictions about how the media sky was set to fall on our heads in the wake of the AOL-Time Warner merger and the FCC’s media ownership decision. But today, by contrast, all the headlines tell a very different story: the old media players are in big, big trouble with all the new form of competition they now face.
Read the entire article here. And don’t forget, I’ll be debating these issues at the National Press Club this Friday along with former FCC Commissioner Susan Ness. Event starts at 10:00. Here’s the event / registration link.
The Miami Herald ran a nice piece yesterday highlighting the impact of the Parents Television Council in the debate over federal speech controls. Glenn Garvin was kind enough to call me for some background since he knows I have been at odds with the PTC in the past, and they have responded directly.
Anyway, in the
Miami Herald article, I note that:
“This group is having a real impact in Washington,” and that “They are coming to have the equivalent of a heckler’s veto over a lot of decisions by the FCC and Congress regarding broadcast content.” I also address the old “public’s airwaves” argument and note that, “Even if the public owns the airwaves, it doesn’t diminish the First Amendment rights of the people in the broadcast industry.” After all, the public technically owns city streets, I point out, but that doesn’t mean the government can censor the newspapers sold in sidewalk coinboxes.’
Anyway, if you care to read the entire article, you can find it here.
The Viacom split is finally offical. Faithful readers know that I have been sounding off about this (and other media divestitutes) for many months now and wondering why we haven’t heard a peep from the Chicken Little media critic crowd about it. After all, whenever there’s even a minor media merger or acquisition proposed, these critics rush out hysterical press releases predicting that the End Times will soon be upon us.
And so I went searching again today online to find see if these groups had posted something–ANYTHING!–about the Viacom crack-up. But I have found nothing. The silence is deafening. I guess that’s no surprise since these critics have made a career of spinning gloom-and-doom tales without providing a shred of evidence about how consumers have supposedly been been harmed. Worse yet, they run around saying that the Internet and new technologies and media outlets change nothing and that the old media companies are still programming our brains. Just silly.
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