NAACP Opposes A La Carte

The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People has written FCC Chairman Kevin Martin and the other commissioners registering their opposition to a la carte cable pricing.

It was responding to reports that a violence report  the commission is preparing to give to Congress suggests TV violence justifies imposing per-channel pricing as a way to give viewers more control over the programming in their homes.

Saying many of its constituents live in communities affected by violence, NAACP Director Hilary Shelton said the FCC needed to review the "negative impact of dramatically reducing the diversity of cable and satellite programs targeting racial and ethnic minorities."

Kevin Martin has been pushing hard for a la carte in Washington and was even making the case to advertisers in a January speech in New York.

John Eggerton

Contributing editor John Eggerton has been an editor and/or writer on media regulation, legislation and policy for over four decades, including covering the FCC, FTC, Congress, the major media trade associations, and the federal courts. In addition to Multichannel News and Broadcasting + Cable, his work has appeared in Radio World, TV Technology, TV Fax, This Week in Consumer Electronics, Variety and the Encyclopedia Britannica.