The Future of Cable Regulation Under the First Amendment: The Supreme Court's Treatment of Section 10(a) of the Cable Television Consumer Protection and Competition Act of 1992

Abstract

The Supreme Court's plurality opinion in Denver Area Educational Telecommunications Consortium, Inc. v. FCC' will likely change the way in which courts analyze speech restrictions on cable television for First Amendment purposes. 2 The Denver plurality formulated and utilized an ad hoc standard to review the speech restrictions at issue. However, the plurality's standard departs substantially from firmly-established First Amendment precedent and was based upon an analytical approach that had previously been applied only to broadcast communications. Specifically, the plurality's analysis failed to take into consideration the fundamental differences between cable