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When you said there's a lot of “loose talk” about cable, what were you thinking about? Some of the dire predictions that we're going to lose control over creative programming or news? What were you thinking about?
Well--
Or that the moguls were being in control of--
No, I think the only thing that I worried about was that when you add our service-- meaning the broadcast service--to the special services, that if they priced it properly, they could drain the circulation away from over the air to the cable. And they'd be able to go to the advertiser and deliver a bigger circulation, and that would do us in very shortly.
Also, because they had more circulation, they could go to Hollywood and pay more for the films and offer a better program service--better in terms of a more expensive service. No, it's fraught with all kinds of competitive problems for the broadcaster. If you take a broad public service look at the obligations of the cable operator or the broadcaster, the cable operator is not going to provide service to the poor third of the community.
I know. Yes. It's increasing the gap, in a way, between the rich and the poor.
And you can say: “Well, that's the part of the community that really needs the uplift that you can get with cable--education, public service about the community.” And yet they're denied that, because you can't afford to put it in.
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