Feature Articles

Satellite dishes like this owned by Wood Television Corp. in Bowling Green, Ohio, receive broadcast signals and retransmit them through the cable to subscribers. Rural local governments tend to regulate cable television (CTV) far less effectively than suburban local governments. That is the major conclusion from a survey of 119 small municipal governments in Maryland. Rural governments need to more effectively regulate CTV because they have so much more to gain, in both a financial sense and in service to their citizens, than suburban governments. A newly enacted Federal law will allow most rural governments to continue regulating their cable companies with few major franchise changes, but it probably will limit many suburban CTV regulations when all the law's provisions become effective (see box).