A group of religious TV broadcasters said FCC chairman Kevin Martin’s proposed á la carte model for cable television operators would “devastate” religious broadcasting.
The Faith and Family Broadcasting Coalition argued that an FCC-forced change to subscriber-selected cable programming would limit and reduce the distribution of religious and faith-based inspirational programming.
“A per-channel charge would dramatically limit, if not kill, the availability of religious-based programming on cable,” said Colby May, a spokesman for the coalition. “For 25 years, the bundled-channel model of cable distribution has allowed religious programmers to be a dynamic and important part of the cable marketplace. A government mandate to force abandonment of channel bundling and substituting in á la carte regime is misguided and threatens that historic distribution.”
