What Free Speech?

Virginia Postrel writes, "cable shows don't suffer from the same constraints. Like print, they're free to provide whatever interviews, information, and entertainment, they think will serve their audience, without government editors telling them what to include or omit. That's called freedom of speech and the press."

The old rules made sense when there were two or three channels on TV, and just a handful of radio stations that did news and talk. Now that there is cable and the internet, as well as satalite radio, and talk of new delivery sytems out there, "equal time" makes no sense. When the market has high barriers to entry and few players you have an oligarchy, and its in the public good to keep a close eye on them. When you have substantially lowered the cost of entry and the number of players is huge , you have a free market, and then government has little useful to do, and is best advised to get out of the way.