Law, Business and Society 11th Edition by Tony McAdams

Exercise 13

Cable television operators use signal scrambling to ensure that only paying customers have access to some programming. Congress was concerned that some sexually explicit cable programming, even though scrambled, might reach children via signal "bleeding." Section 505 of the Telecommunications Act of 1996 required cable operators to fully block sexually oriented channels or to "time channel"-that is, transmit only in hours when children are unlikely to be viewing. Most cable operators adopted the latter approach, with the result that for two-thirds of the day no viewers in the operators' service areas could receive the sexually explicit programming. Section 504 of the Telecommunications Act required cable operators to block undesired channels at individual households on request. A supplier of sexually oriented programming challenged Section 505 on First Amendment grounds. Decide the case. Explain. See United States v. Playboy Entertainment Group, 529 U.S. 803 (2000).