I Want My Skin TV.

• Author: Lynch, Michael W.
• Position: Legal challenges to law requiring cable TV broadcasters to block sexually oriented programming from 6 a.m. until 10 p.m. - Brief Article

Imagine if Congress mandated that Playboy subscribers could peruse their monthly morale booster only between 10 p.m. and 6 a.m.

The 1996 Communications Decency Act imposed much the same restriction on viewers of sexually explicit cable TV channels. Addressing the problem of "signal bleed," which can cause scrambled channels to appear clearly on a non-subscriber's television set, Congress ordered cable TV operators to fully scramble or block any channel that is primarily dedicated to sexually oriented programming. If that can't be accomplished, the cable companies must turn the signal off from 6 a.m. to 10 p.m.

The law was in effect from May 1997 until December 1998, when the U.S. District Court of the District of Delaware enjoined it in response to a challenge by Playboy Entertainment. During that time, every cable system in the country which experienced signal bleed simply turned off the Playboy Channel, Spice...