VandenBerg’s Views

There was an interesting article in the Los Angeles Times 5 January 2009, regarding Time Warner Cable, Inc. and the California’s Digital Infrastructure and Video Competition Act (DIVCA), a provision of a law passed by California State Legislation in 2006 that went in to effect Thursday 1 January 2009.  You are welcome to read the article as it gives a good description of the new law provision and some background on the remainder of this article.

I will not bore you with the details, but essentially the DIVCA allows a cable television company to pay a fee to the city in lieu of providing studios, equipment and training, for free, to the public.  The logic behind the provision was to make it easier for other companies (other telecommunication entities, such as Verizon) to enter the market without having to provide these services.  This was to promote competition to the cable television companies. All of these companies providing video delivery service are still obligated to provide a certain number of channels for local access.  Local access is normally religious or other amateur programming that would never be broadcast were it not for these access channels.  To be fair to California, twenty other states in the USA have enacted similar legislation.

Time Warner Cable, Inc. simply looked at the amount they were spending on twelve fully equipped, fully staffed studios, compared that to the amount of the fee and made an accounting decision based on cost.  It seems like good business.  This decision may not have been the best thing for public relations for the company, and there may be a moral obligation that Time Warner is skirting, but those thoughts never made the article.

So what is the problem, you ask?  There are advocacy groups that now claim that their First Amendment rights are being violated.

First of all, the access to have video productions broadcast for free still exists.  By law.  Secondly, no one is compelling any person or group to stop producing video creations.  Third, there are many video delivery services other than the local cable television companies, the most prominent being YouTube.  Since there is no new restriction being placed on the ability to create or broadcast an amateur video production what could possibly be the basis for claiming an infringement on the First Amendment?

As I read the article I realized the advocacy groups were not questioning the access to having their video productions broadcast.  Their claim of First Amendment violation came from no longer having access to free television studio equipment, time and instruction.  Hold on just a minute.  My right to free speech also includes a production studio?

What is my point to all of this?  Entitlements.  We have become a society of entitlements.  It starts with giving our children an allowance; they learn that they receive money without merit.  Then we give every participant in a competition an award, which demeans the winner of the competition.  And on it goes, teaching our society that it is normal to receive without the merit of earning.  Eventually we come to this particular story in which people actually believe that a fully stocked and staffed television studio, at no cost to them whatsoever, is a fundamental right granted to them under the protections of the Bill of Rights.  I have no doubt they truly believe this is a violation of their rights.

I hope, for everyone involved, that this group decides to sue.  They have quite a list of potential victims: Time Warner Cable, Inc., the city of Los Angeles and the State of California;  anyone who they feel owes them something they have never earned.  And when they sue, I hope the court system has the wisdom to tell these people that they can not force someone else to buy a studio and produce their videos at no cost.  If that happens it will be a small step on the return path towards sanity.

Apparently I grew up differently, in a strange world where people don’t depend on entitlements to get through life.  I wonder if we as a society will ever return to the value of merit.

Remember that this is simply my opinion on this particular event.  You are entitled to your opinion, of course.

Copyright 2009 Mark D. VandenBerg All rights reserved.