Religion and Cable TV: New law needed to open religious TV now excluded by

[Tom Yossarian Joad]

Religion and Cable TV: New law needed to open religious TV now excluded by cable

(Comment by poster: This is from a rabidly RW source and that it why it has been posted. I haven't seen much by anyone else on the topic and it scares the hell out of me that so many are being so quiet about the proposal. This is a bill being supported by Frist and Blunt and they are trying to sneak it into the legislation that will drop analog TV signals in favor of Digital in 2009. I haven't heard anything about this from MSM.)


"Multicast Must-Carry" is the name of the new law proposed. It will open up morally-based TV now ignored by cable.
Cable has not given religious broadcasting the attention it is due. Therefore, legislation is needed to bring this about. Legislators must be contacted in order to see this proposal through.

It is fact that cable purposefully puts aside religious broadcasting in particular. This disturbs moralists who want more family-friendly viewing. All this is true while at the same time cable informs the press that it has made arrangements with PBS and other venues for larger media outlets.

Since this is so, it is significant that cable opens up to morally-grounded programming. The public has made it known that it wants that kind of entertainment and educational networking. Polls have shown that to be reality.

Moralists presently are requested to support a "Multicast Must-Carry" law that will insure religious channels on cable.

More: http://newsbyus.com/more.php?id=243_0_1_0_M

[Massacure]

1. They don't carry it because it doesn't make money.

Go Capitalism! Screw Communism. </Republican voice>

[kikiek]

2. My response exactly. Force them to take a loss? Also how about

fair coverage for all minorities, gays, muslims, jews, wiccans, etc? Kind of opens a can of worms wouldn't you say?

[RC]

9. Naa, those aren't real religions. They're just cults and superstitions.

Don'tchaknow? Only the far right fundies and semi-senile old ladies have real religion. :eyes:

[acmejack]

3. So now they are "moralists"

Sanctimonious creeps. Four morals & 4 religiouses in just the snip.

[dkofos]

4. They are joking right??

Maybe the televangalists should give up air time and show "family oriented programming" instead of their usual spew.

[MaineDem]

5. There area bout 10 religious networks on DirecTV

I know it's not literally "cable" but pretty much the same.

At least I can block them so they don't even show up on the channel guide. It's the same thing I do with the gazillion of shopping channels.

[supernova]

7. Those are all mostly conservative/fundie

or so I think. I haven't watched them in a while.

How do you block stations? I'm curious. There's a lot of stations I don't get and it would clean out my channel guide.

[MaineDem]

11. It depends on your receiver

But either under "Menu" or on the remote there's an option for setting Favorites. It takes a bit of time to select the channels you want but well worth it, in my opinion.

[LiberalFighter]

13. Comcast Cable doesn't even have any religious channels

here in the "City of Churches"

[DBoon]

6. They can do their thing on public access

just like the rest of us.

[supernova]

8. Remember when we were kids and local stations broadcast local churches

Or was this only in the south?

For many years, decades, our CBS affiliate broadcast the service from one of the bigger Presby churches here. This is not fundie, fire and brimestone stuff, but very much in the mainline to liberal mold.

As a kid I wasn't interested in it. They typically had one camera in the balcony and one on the pulpit. If it was really fancy you saw the choir. ;-) So, it was a little slow-moving for me.

But, I think it was nice for all the older folks who wanted to listen and were unable to get out of the house.

Listening to that is a lot better than listening to Jerry Falwell.

Whatever happened to this quaint old custom?

[BiggJawn]

10. What a load of bullshit.

My local cable company offers Trinity Broadcasting, Eternal Word Broadcasting, LeSEA, Pat Robertson, and the local toothless rattlesnake kissers on Public Access.

Unfortunately, they also offer Spice, The Chick-Channel, and 150 other channels of entertainment that is "Worldly".

These Fundies will NOT be satisfied until you turn on your TV and see nothing BUT Telly-Vangelists telling you to send a cheque or risk eternal hellfire..
Oh, and the Weather Channel, too.

"Cable has not given religious broadcasting the attention it is due. Therefore, legislation is needed to bring this about."

Not much Atheist or Rationalist programming available, either. Maybe we should lobby to get Randi-Vision or The Sagan Channel included in the line-up?

And you can say the same thing about "adult" programming. Maybe I should contact Steve Buyer about getting The Anal Channel and OralMaxx included in the bill.

Cable is a private industry. It does NOT make use of the "public airwaves" (which are available to the highest bidder) They are already saddled with enough meddling with all this "Community Standards" and "Fur den Kinder" bullshit.

[Az]

12. Used to be a channel called the 90's channel

It was a low budget liberal channel. Basically they could only afford to put a 120 minute loop tape on each day. They would cover various protests and events. Short but informative.

Newt Gingrich didn't care much for this channel. Neither did the religious right. Cable companies weren't too fond of it either. So they decided to ditch it.

Problem.

A huge protest went up and petitions were signed demanding the channel be returned. So it came back.

But the religious right, the cable companies, and uncle Newt wanted otherwise. So a deal was struck.

The 90's channel was KOed. In its place we got a multitude of religious channels.

Any time of the day you can find a multitude of religious channels on basic cable. Yet no where can you find a liberal channel. No where can you find a skeptical channel (even the SciFi channel is coopted by the paranormal). Yet still they want more.