Last week the Federal Communications Commission fundamentally rearranged that neat chart, opening the door for networks to buy into cable. Rather than having an affiliate in Boise or Topeka, the nets could feed their programs directly into their own cable systems, eliminating the need to pay fees to local stations. Although CBS, NBC, ABC and Fox will still face limits–they can’t have cable systems in cities where they own stations and may not own systems serving more than 10 percent of households with cable access-they could, at least in theory, keep some of their most popular programs away from their affiliates.
That prospect has station owners worried. The value of stations has been in a tailspin: Americans are spending less time watching the networks, and with cable serving three out of five U.S. homes, couch potatoes increasingly satisfy their cravings from the proliferating menu of cable programming without tuning in to an over-the-air station. That means less money for broadcasters. Murphy Brown, please call your agent.
