GOVERNING PRINCIPLES FOR CONGRESSIONAL REFORM

During the next decade, Congress should do the following:

• Continue and expand the policy of open entry. Such entry contributes to the diversity of programming and of sources, thereby serving the First Amendment.7 A new entrant such as DBS may bring service to underserved rural areas or spur the development of direct subscriber programming like pay-per-view. High-powered DBS and telco may end the present cable bottleneck faced by subscribers and information providers trying to gain broadband access to the home.8 Telco and the computer industry will likely foster new informational programming. New entrants may obviate the need for cable rate regulation by providing the more effective competitive spur or check. In short, new entrants may offer innumerable benefits.
• Promote open, nondiscriminatory access for information providers and the public. This principle is closely related to the open entry policy described above. Indeed, with a plethora of effective distribution channels, no government intervention, such as requiring general (telco) or partial (cable) common carriage, may be needed.
• Maintain and promote vigorous competition. Because competition and diverse control of mass media have always been important public-interest elements of communications (see footnote seven), the area has not been entrusted solely to antitrust enforcement. In view of the multichannel trends and mergers prompted by current uncertainties, this principle may require a balance of opposing considerations, namely, a need to consider economies of scale against the desirability of diversification and competition.9
• Maintain and promote the provision of public service programming that contributes to an educated and informed citizenry in an effective manner consistent with the First Amendment and, indeed, reduce First Amendment strains by developing structural approaches that facilitate the achievement of goals without behavioral regulation. Video is increasingly important to the nation: it is a young child's window on the world, and most people now obtain their news and information from television. Therefore, television should also provide educational, cultural, and in-depth informational programming. The government's role here, as in the case of libraries or the National Endowments for the Arts or Humanities, may be of critical importance.
• Avoid unnecessary regulation and, to the extent possible, adopt like regulation for like services so as not to tilt the playing field.10
• Promote universal service concepts to combat the have/have not problem.