CWA Urges Support for Legally Mandated Cable Choice
by Bill Fancher and Jenni Parker
December 8, 2005
(AgapePress) - - The pro-family group Concerned Women for America has commended the Federal Communications Commission for standing up for family values by announcing the agency's support for cable companies offering customers cable choice options instead of forcing them to purchase pre-packaged channel bundles. Now CWA is calling on Congress and a reluctant cable industry to give U.S. families "channel choice."CWA president Beverly LaHaye notes that cable television has long been offered to the American public on a "take it or leave it" basis, since consumers have few viable competitors to turn to when fed up with their cable providers. As a result, she says, pro-family consumers have rallied around "the only option open to them -- a la carte pricing, which offers consumers choice of which channels they want to pay for."
Lanier Swann, CWA's director of government relations, says cable choice is the logical solution to the growing problem of negative influences coming into American families' lives through cable programming. A growing number of people feel consumers should be allowed to choose the television networks they want to allow into their homes and should not be forced to pay for those they find offensive or inappropriate.
The effort by a groundswell of pro-family forces to get the a la carte cable packaging or "channel choice" solution implemented is "a campaign that just aims to put the power back into the hands that matter most, and that is the American consumer, the American families who subscribe to cable," Swann says. That is why CWA, the largest women's public policy organization in the United States, is throwing its weight behind the concept.
"We think it is ridiculous that cable companies ask families to pay for channels they don't want to watch," CWA's head of government relations explains. "Cable choice would simply allow subscribers to pick and choose each and every cable channel they want coming into their home, and our polling numbers actually show about 80 percent of Americans support cable choice."
Specifically, the CWA poll found that 80 percent of U.S. consumers disagree with the way the cable tier-pricing system currently functions, and a majority (62 percent) said they would prefer to choose cable programming for themselves. Also, cable customers pay for 50 to 75 channels for basic cable packages and more than 200 channels for digital cable packages, yet these consumers watch only 12 to 15 channels regularly on average.
CWA chief counsel Jan LaRue says cable-subscriber families nationwide are "fed up with paying for somebody else's choice" and want more individualized options. "Having to block out programming you pay for is no choice -- it's a rip off." American consumers "don't pay for food we don't want to eat" or for "magazines we don't want to read," she asserts, "and we're not remotely interested in paying for programs we don't want to watch."
Swann says although the cable television industry has been fighting the idea of channel choice for years, the momentum in favor of the consumer-friendly option is growing. Still, she says it will take pressure from the public to get Congress to act on the issue.
A bill that would mandate cable choice is even now being held up in the U.S. Senate, and CWA reports that the prospects are not good for any action on the legislation within the next few months.
