My radio and TV have off switches and I can even change the channel. You really ought to look into one of these new-fangled devices. It's truly amazing.

My cable company even lets you have channel blockers so certain stations don't come into your home. It's amazing how the free market works wonders, ain't it?

Well, that was effective: TV Ad rates just went up. Next?

Bart:

Start broadcasting on Channel 7 and see how long ABC lets you practice your freedom.

Channel 7 belongs to ABC. They got there fustest with the mostest. If Channel 7 decided to put 24 hours of porn on the air, I wouldn't watch much of it and I wouldn't object. Others can simply use a channel blocker.

That's the same arguent that says I can do whatever I want on my land, and to hell with the neighbors. It's an attitude that leads to restrictive zoning laws when more voluntary means of getting cooperation fails. Or to use another example, just because they built next to the stream doesn't mean that they can withhold all the water from downstream users. Has there ever been a cases where "homesteading" in this country confered unlimited rights, so and why should broadcasting "homesteading" be any different?

If Ch.7 encodes their broadcasts and porn viewers had to buy a decoder from them, then your 24hr porn argument might have some merit. But they are operating in the equivalent of a public space, no matter how they got there,and so can be required to meet certain minimal levels of decency as determined by their neighbors. Or they find a new place to operate that's more open to their offerings.

Right now the FCC does recognize the difference between an over-the-air broadcast, using limited spectrum space, channels that require basic cable/satellite subscription, and pay channels that have an added surcharge. The same also holds true for the difference between regular and satellite radio (i.e. Howard Stern on KROCK vs. Howard next year on Sirius).

The first is obviously under federal guidelines because of the limited space for TV and radio transmission (even more so for TV with future HDTV broadcasts), while tighter regulation of the pay channels a the federal level is bound to cause trouble, since it userps community standards on programming that requires a double payment in order to view (and is usually self-correcting at the local level, as with the Adelphina case in suburban Los Angeles, when the cable company was forced to back off airing of hard-core pr0n on their cable systems).

The real battle is with the basic TV package, where people who subscribe to watch ESPN, Lifetime or Fox News don't want to be flipping past MTV and coming up on Xtreme Spring Break Gone Wild, or something similar. Channel lockouts are available, but your average child above the age of 8 can ususally work their way around those restrictions. That's where the future fights are going to be, and possibly after that on the basic sat radio stations, which have only limited barriers against PG-13 and up language and topics right now.

Bart:

Belongs? What's to stop you from just overriding their signal?

Plus for crying out loud, Bart, we are talking about public broadcasting, not a private lending library. Porn and even off colour humour aren't narcotics that do damage only when we see and hear them but are completely benign if we don't. Rules of civility, relations between the sexes, how men treat women in the workplace and within marriage and relationships, what can and can't be said and done in public, around children or the elderly, etc. etc. are matters kids learn from their observations on what is publically acceptable to society at large, not just what their parents allow. If this is yet another vice you are determined to go down fighting for, please consider that this is why God invented DVD's and stay off the air.

Raoul,

The number of channels is virtually infinite. If Homeowner A decides to open a slaughterhouse on his property, the smells affact Homeowner B. If porn is on Channel 7 and EWTN(what my father calls the Costume Channel) is on Channel 8, the one has no impact on the other, so your 'neighbor' argument fails.

John,

Paying for porn seems like the easiest solution, not barring it from the airwaves in toto. There are lots of unpleasant things in life we have to pass by on the way to something we want. Channel changing should be no different. Anyway aren't most remotes equipped with a system allowing you to merely punch in the number of your desired channel.

Peter,

That is what parents and churches are for, not the government. If someone is in front of me in the '10 Items or Less' line at the supermarket, I do not need the government to tell me the inappropriateness of pulling out my Glock .45, throwing her excess items into the air, and practicing my skeet shooting. Adults do understand that they cannot act out their feelings.