TV’s Unnatural Monopolies
The big loser in the battle between Time Warner Cable and CBS is not the cable company, the network or the viewers who lost access to their favorite shows. The big loser is Washington, whose efforts to regulate what used to be called television grow more futile with every new video technology.
Lawmakers and regulators still treat broadcasters and cable operators as “natural” monopolies. That gives them a rationale to layer on bureaucratic rules setting out how the industry should be run.
