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17 Comm. L. & Pol'y 1 (2012)

handle is hein.journals/comulp17 and id is 1 raw text is: 17 COMM. L. & PoL'Y 1-20 (2012) Routledge Copyright @ Taylor & Francis Group, LLC Taylor&Franis Group ISSN: 1081-1680 print / 1532-6926 online DOI: 10.1080/10811680.2012.633802 CABLE TV DEREGULATION RECONSIDERED: AN EXPLORATION OF THREE THESES MICHAEL ZARKIN* Why did the Federal Communications Commission deregulate cable television between 1974 and 1980? This article attempts to answer this question through a comparative consideration of three theoret- ical explanations: the policy discourse explanation, the policy sys- tems explanation, and the organizational capacity explanation. Ul- timately, the article concludes that none of these perspectives, standing alone, adequately explains the FCCs deregulation of cable television. The article also provides a more integrative explanation for policy change. Between 1974 and 1980 the Federal Communications Commission sub- stantially deregulated the cable television industry. During these years, the FCC repealed or substantively revised five major sets of regula- tions - the program origination rules, the leapfrogging rules, the net- work exclusivity rules, the syndicated exclusivity rules, and the distant signal importation rules. What was notable about deregulation, how- ever, was not only its scope but also its timing. Most of the regulations had been promulgated or revised as recently as 1972, and none had existed in any form prior to 1965. Thus, both in scope and timing, FCC deregulation of cable in the 1970s represented an episode of rather dramatic and abrupt policy change that seemed to beg for scholarly explanation. Up to this point, however, scholarly attention to cable deregulation has taken the form of description rather than theoretical explanation. Policy theory has been employed to examine other eras in the history of FCC cable television regulation, including the decisions to impose Associate Professor of Political Science, Westminster College.

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