Postmortem

How did Thursday’s cable rates hearing play in the consumer press? SC’s The Times and Democrat ran an editorial fretting that government should be cautious about intervening. "After the experience of the last decade and the much-ballyhooed cable TV legislation of 1992, let’s hope any government fix isn’t worse than the problem itself," the paper concludes. The Washington Post’s business section story chose to paint a picture of a "dream world" where readers could pick and choose whether or not to receive ESPN Classic, TeleFutura or MTV. "Reality is far different," the article continues. "No US cable or satellite company offers what are called ‘a la carte’ plans." The piece goes on to present cable’s argument that a la carte would cost too much, with tit for tat from both sides. Several papers, including The NY Times, went with an AP article that was a virtual he said/she said of the Sen Commerce hearing. — C-SPAN’s Brian Lamb asked Time Warner Cable chief Glenn Britt at CTPAA how well the Hill understands cable. His response: "As a group, not at all." Thursday’s hearing bore him out in spades as some lawmakers charged cable with packaging Playboy with expanded basic fare.