Published In

Journal of Information Policy

Document Type

Article

Publication Date

2018

Subjects

Telecommunication --United States -- Public policy, Municipal franchises -- Licenses -- Fees -- United States, Telecommunication lines -- Law and legislation -- United States, Telecommunication policy

Abstract

Subscribers to cable television typically pay Franchise and Public–Educational– Governmental (PEG) Fees. Ostensibly, these monthly fees exist to compensate communities for the private use of public goods and to bolster the marketplace of ideas. Little empirical research, however, assesses the utility of these fees as policy mechanisms. In this article, we track the existence and dispensation of the fees in the 20 largest American cities by examining their recent annual budgets. This provides a foundation to consider the fees’ contributions in the context of ongoing legal challenges to their existence and the increase of digital television services beyond their purview.

Rights

Copyright © 2018 by The Pennsylvania State University. All rights reserved.

Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

DOI

10.5325/jinfopoli.8.2018.0442

Persistent Identifier

https://archives.pdx.edu/ds/psu/28426

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