Turner Broadcasting System, Inc. v. FCC

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Turner Broadcasting System, Inc. v. FCC is the general title of two rulings of the United States Supreme Court on the constitutionality of must-carry regulations enforced by the Federal Communications Commission on cable television operators. In the first ruling, known colloquially as Turner I, 512 U.S. 622 (1994), the Supreme Court held that cable television companies were First Amendment speakers who enjoyed free speech rights when determining what channels and content to carry on their networks, but demurred on whether the must-carry rules at issue were restrictions of those rights. After a remand to a lower court for fact-finding on the economic effects of the Cable Television Consumer Protection and Competition Act of 1992 , the dispute returned to the Supreme Court. In Turner II, 520 U.S. 180 (1997), the Supreme Court held that must-carry rules for cable television companies were not restrictions of their free speech rights because the U.S. government had a compelling interest in enabling the distribution of media content from multiple sources and in preserving local television.

Contents

• 1 Background

• 2 Turner I ruling

• 3 Turner II ruling

• 4 Impact

• 5 See also

• 6 References

• 7 External links

Background

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When American consumers widely migrated to cable television in the 1980s, regulators became concerned about the viability of older terrestrial and local television stations, which could not compete with cable television but which were essential for delivering local news and other essential information. Additionally, consumers who had signed up for cable service would have no further need for their antennas, which were previously the only means to pick up local television stations.

Typically, cable television network operators voluntarily carried local stations because they were popular with consumers, but those channels took up space on the cable network that could be dedicated to more profitable channels. The Cable Television Consumer Protection and Competition Act of 1992, via a group of provisions that became known as must-carry regulations, required cable operators to include all relevant local broadcast stations in their offerings to an area's consumers, and to dedicate up to one-third of their channels for this purpose if necessary. This was done to promote localism in television content as required by the Communications Act of 1934 and to maintain the viability of local broadcasters. The rules were to be enforced by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC).

Soon after the statute's passage, various cable television companies, represented by Turner Broadcasting System , filed suit in the US District Court for the District of Columbia . The companies alleged that they exercised free speech via their content delivery choices, and the must-carry rules requiring them to provide television channels that they would not otherwise carry were a form of unconstitutional compelled speech . Furthermore, the companies argued that the must-carry rules were a type of content-based regulation that required a strict scrutiny analysis to determine if the government's interest in molding the television marketplace outweighed the companies' First Amendment rights. In 1993, the District Court rejected those arguments and held that the must-carry rules were a type of economic regulation in which Congress employed "its regulatory powers over the economy to impose order upon a market in dysfunction." Under a less demanding intermediate scrutiny analysis for non-content-based regulations, the District Court held that the preservation of local broadcasting was an important governmental interest, and that the must-carry provisions were acceptably tailored to serve that interest.

Turner Broadcasting System appealed that decision. Statutory provisions for cases involving federal regulations allowed a direct appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court , which granted _certiorari _ in 1994.

Turner I ruling

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In the Supreme Court's first review of the must-carry rules, now known as the Turner I ruling, the court focused primarily on whether the rules were a content-based regulation requiring a strict scrutiny analysis to determine if freedom of speech or freedom of the press had been violated. This would demand a complex examination of whether requiring a cable company to carry a TV station against its will was a type of compelled speech . Government attempts to require a media outlet to publish content against its will were deemed unconstitutional under the First Amendment in Miami Herald v. Tornillo (1974). However, that case involved newspapers, and the Supreme Court had also ruled in _Red Lion Broadcasting Co. v. FCC _ (1969) that the FCC had greater economic authority over television due to the scarcity of broadcast frequencies and the pervasiveness of mass media content. Furthermore, courts had also determined that cable television operators had obligations to local communities due to the burdens of building network infrastructure.

These conflicting precedents necessitated an updated analysis of whether must-carry rules were benefits to local communities and whether they were burdensome for cable TV operators, with the assumption that those operators have free speech rights as well. The Supreme Court found the analysis of these matters, both by the District Court and Congress when writing the Cable Television Consumer Protection and Competition Act , to be deficient. Thus, the Supreme Court vacated the 1993 District Court ruling that upheld the must-carry rules and [reman

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