The Integrative Stream

Family Friendly TV

This week, the Integrative Stream finally dives into the culture wars! Just kidding. However, I’ve been watching the coverage of the proposed new “family friendly” cable TV tier (link is to WSJ.com, subscription required) with a passing interest.

From a consumer perspective, I loved the original proposal, which was to provide a la carte, channel by channel, service to customers. There are only about three cable channels I watch regularly; the $2.50 a month on my cable bill for ESPN is, from my perspective, a total loss. Bundling means I’m paying a lot more, which, of course, is the point. The bottom line is that I don’t care where proposals come from as long as they’re consumer friendly.

But there’s another issue, largely ignored in the broader discussion of what’s “family friendly.” Sex and violence are out, of course. But what about religion? A few years ago, the cable company around here offered to block individual channels that viewers found offensive. This was when the Family Channel was broadcasting the 700 club, Pat Robertson’s TV platform, and an openly gay friend of mind called up the cable company and asked them to block the channel as he found the show offensive. I’m not sure what happened, and this wouldn’t be an issue with a la carte pricing: if you don’t want to pay for fundamentalist broadcasting, you wouldn’t have to. But it is an issue with bundled services: frankly, the only bundle that would be morally acceptable for everyone would be one consisting of the Weather Channel and, well, that’s about it.