I think I might like a few TV channels, but I would much prefer a system where I either pay for a few channels or just pay for what I want. Mr Swann articulates the standard industry position against such a proposal. My comments are in bold:

Congress, Leave Cable TV Alone!
Lawmakers want to cut prices, but their proposals could eliminate
many small cable networks and hurt new technology services.
By Phillip Swann

Washington, DC (March 26) -- Sen. John McCain, chairman of the
Senate Commerce Committee, is urging cable operators to offer a la
carte pricing for basic cable networks such as MTV and the USA
Network. However, the proposal, which is designed to lower consumer
prices, would actually hurt consumers as well as the cable operators.
And here's why.

McCain, and other lawmakers who favor the a la carte approach, don't
seem to understand that cable TV's entire revenue model is based on
packaging channels rather than selling them individually. Viewers
who now pay $20-$30 a month for a package of 25 or 30 channels
might spend half that under the a la carte plan, ordering just a few
favorites at $2-3 each.

"When I go to the grocery store to buy a quart of milk, I don't have to
buy a package of celery and a bunch of broccoli," McCain said in an
interview with The Washington Post. "I don't like broccoli."

Seems logical

Now, that may sound logical if you're a victim of rising cable prices.
However, the a la carte plan would dramatically shrink cable revenues,
making it more difficult for operators to provide new technology
services such as High-Definition TV, Digital Video Recorders and
Video on Demand. It's expensive to build -- and maintain -- the
infrastructure that's necessary to offer these features.

Here is where I think you make your first mistake. First you assume that cable TV operators need to provide these technologies. Only one of these is mandated by law (HDTV). The other two are technologies that are said to be the wave of the future. If these are publicly necessary technologies why doesn't the cable industry either:

1) Add a service charge to the bill for these technologies or
2) Petition the FCC to add a usage fee for these services

The reason this is not done is the cable industry realizes that such technologies are not necessary or have little public support. There would be little chance that the public would support such an item on their billing. However, packaging channels together, mixing free channels (EWTN), channel paid (HSN) and subscriber-paid (ESPN, HBO and everything else) costs are distorted. People see that you get 50 channels for x number of $ when maybe HSN is giving money to the cable company to carry the channel and ESPN maybe requiring the cable provider to give $2 to carry ESPN. A better system is where the customer can make the informed decision, adding HSN to his bill if he wants to reduce the bill for instance.

It's ironic that as Congress pressures cable operators to offer more
HDTV programming, it's discussing a proposal that would eliminate
the revenue necessary to provide it.

I agree. Congress is hiding HDTV requirements under must carry regulation. A better idea would be if it costs more money, Congress should be honest a say that a fee needs to assessed. However, nobody really wants to pay for HDTV so it would be impossible. A fee is much more honest than hiding the cost elsewhere in the bill.

In addition, the a la carte plan would put cable at a disadvantage in its
battle against satellite TV operators, who are not required to offer
individual channel choices. Consequently, the dish operators would
be under less pressure to keep their prices down and service up. The
competition between cable and satellite has been the best thing that's
ever happened to the American TV viewer. But a la carte would
destroy that overnight.

Satellite providers should be required to provide a la carte requirements, too. I don't see why Mr. Swann just doesn't ask that this part of the legislation be required of the satellite providers, too.

And, finally, if a la carte was offered, most viewers would order just a
handful of basic cable networks, leaving other channels to go dry and
eventually go out of business. Niche networks such as BBC America,
Tech TV and The Independent Film Channel probably would not
survive under a la carte plan. That would be a serious blow to
programming diversity.

Maybe that diversity is the wrong type of diversity. I think that most diversity is just filler to say that you can provide X number of channels for Y number of $. Maybe instead of BBC America, subscribers would pay money for a version of Animal Planet without commercials. Personally I'm glad that BBC America was brought up since apart from old Avengers reruns, I find this channel a waste of my cable dollars. IFC is filled with movies that only the elite want to see. If diversity is required, let the industry float a proposal to have a universal subscriber fee to reduce the cost of the diversity so that people who want this diversity could get it at an affordable price. Again this is a non-starter. Diversity of programming is not something the American public would be willing to pay $$ or.

Congress should butt out of the cable TV business. If cable
operators continue to raise prices, they will lose subscribers to the
satellite TV business. That's the free market at work -- and it's the
best solution to keeping prices down.

Hah, the vast majority of cable franchises are monopolies and the satellite industry is little better with Dish and DirectTV being granted FCC licenses to operate with those frequencies. A free-market requires the ability for bodies to enter easily compete which isn't the case there. This is not a free market and the government has a perfect right to institute the regulation it thinks is necessary.

Phillip Swann is President & Publisher of TVPredictions.com. If you
would like to contact Mr. Swann, he can be reached at 703-505-3064
or at Swann@TVPredictions.com. And come back every weekday
for a new prediction for 2005!

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The Lion of Russia Roars Again!

Alexander Solzhenitzyn is a man among men. And, in many ways, Chesterton's spiritual brother.

Since his return to Russia in 1994, after decades in exile, he has kept quiet and guarded his privacy. But in the aftermath of a terrorist bomb exploding under a train south of Moscow, injuring at least 15 people, he believed he had to speak.

Justin Raimondo - author, Libertarian activist and chief columnist for the popular Antiwar.com - wrote a column on June 13th on Solzhenitsyn speaking to the world in the bomb's aftermath. As told by Raimondo, Russia cannot be pushed into a 'democracy' from the top-down. "Democracy can only grow upwards, like a plant," he said. As Solzhenitsyn sees it, Russia is next in line to undergo "regime change" like what happened during Ukraine's "Orange Revolution".

So it seems he - and Raimondo - are backing Putin and some of his policies, vis-a-vis the Chechen rebels at least. Certainly the current Russian opposition is nothing to sing about.

Vladimir Zhirinovsky, head of the Liberal Democratic Party of Russia, still struts on the Russian political stage, promoting hatred of the West and Jew-hatred. The still active Communist Party, reconstituted since the supposed fall of the Soviet Union, and led by Genadii Zyuganov, still continue to work for returning Russia back under the Hammer-And-Sickle. The Union of Right Forces, a coalition of pro-Western and capitalist parties, do their best under depressing conditions to further liberate Russia from her tyrannical past.

But Putin himself is no prize. Consolidating the nation's media under government control, moving to strengthen military and economic ties with Red China, India and Brazil, putting more chains on Russia's struggling private sector, hidden persecution of Catholic activity...all this and more removes the presidential veneer of this 'former' KGB colonel. It shows him pushing Russia back into dictatorship.

And what for the people of Russia? With the neo-Stalinist Putin running the show and the neo-Trotskyite New Right Western powers - with Bush and Blair in the lead - wishing to make them their puppets, it is like asking which chief devil of Hell you wish to be possessed by.

In either case, you will still be possessed and damned.

Our Savior said that "A prophet is not without honor, except in his own country." So it is with Solzhenitsyn, both yesterday in exile in Vermont and today back home in Russia. Neither Moscow nor Washington are listening to him. But such has always been the case. Both are committed to setting up their own rival New World Orders and will brook no opposition.

And - forgive the obvious - there is no known Distributist movement in Russia today. But this must change.

NOTE: Joseph Pearce, author of the Chesterton biography Wisdom and Innocence also wrote a biography of the Lion of Russia called Solzhenitsyn: A Soul In Exile. This work is very highly recommended here at the DR. Pearce also recommends a book by him called Rebuilding Russia, which he believes should be put side-by-side with Chesterton's Outline of Sanity.

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Cheese and Wells

This article, originally put up on the neo-conservative news site WorldNetDaily, is written by Garth Stapley for the Modesto Bee of Modesto, California.

Hilmar Cheese Company, the world's largest cheese maker, wants to drill an "injection well" nearly 3/4 of a mile underground. It has filed a permit request with the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to do just that. The well would contain the waste liquids resulting from cheese manufacturing at the Hilmar Plant. As Stapley reports, the company - founded in 1984 - has had a long history of pollution violations with the California government.

The company produces one million pounds of cheese every day!

This is but another example of how the "bigger-is-better" philosophy wreaks havoc with nature, the economy and government.

Couldn't the demand for California cheese be just as easily met by hundreds of small producers, working either separately or in a co-op fashion? Certainly with the reduced scale, there would be much less chance for the amount of liquid waste that Hilmar generates now. Further, with lesser waste, there would be fewer headaches created over how to dispose the waste, yet not threaten drinking water supplies or the local eco-system.

In a Distributist society, there would be no behemoths like Hilmar Cheese. Better there be hundreds or thousands of small cheese makers meeting demand than one or two big leviathans like Hilmar.

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The Challenge of North Korea

This review, written by Yoel Sano in the June 4th edition of the Asia Times, is about the fascinating book Under The Loving Care of the Fatherly Leader: North Korea and the Kim Dynasty. The book is written by Bradley K. Martin, and published in the US by Thomas Dunne Books.

It is a one-volume work, written without hyperbole or exaggeration, about the Stalinist tyranny that has suffocated North Korea for over fifty years. It also tells of the two Kims who have so forcefully stamped their mark upon their people.

If this sad, starving country is ever freed from Communist tyranny, it will one of Distributism's most daunting challenges to convince it to follow Belloc and Chesterton. But it must be done, both there and elsewhere throughout the globe.

We owe it to God Almighty, to ourselves, our families and the world to do so.

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