Cite as: 507 U. S. 410 (1993)
Opinion of the Court
low value. Based on that premise, the city contends that the fact that assertedly more valuable publications are allowed to use newsracks does not undermine its judgment that its esthetic and safety interests are stronger than the interest in allowing commercial speakers to have similar access to the reading public.
We cannot agree. In our view, the city's argument attaches more importance to the distinction between commercial and noncommercial speech than our cases warrant and seriously underestimates the value of commercial speech.
This very case illustrates the difficulty of drawing bright lines that will clearly cabin commercial speech in a distinct category. For respondents' publications share important characteristics with the publications that the city classifies as "newspapers." Particularly, they are "commercial hand-bills" within the meaning of § 714-1-C of the city's code because they contain advertising, a feature that apparently also places ordinary newspapers within the same category.14
Separate provisions in the code specifically authorize the distribution of "newspapers" on the public right of way, but that term is not defined.15 Presumably, respondents' publications do not qualify as newspapers because an examination of their content discloses a higher ratio of advertising to other text, such as news and feature stories, than is found in the exempted publications.16 Indeed, Cincinnati's City
14 See n. 2, supra.
15 Cincinnati Municipal Code § 862-1 (1992) provides: "Permission is hereby granted to any person or persons lawfully authorized to engage in the business of selling newspapers to occupy space on the sidewalks of city streets for selling newspapers, either in the morning or afternoon, where permission has been obtained from the owner or tenant of the adjoining building."
16 Some ordinary newspapers try to maintain a ratio of 70% advertising to 30% editorial content. See generally C. Fink, Strategic Newspaper Management 43 (1988).
419
Page: Index Previous 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 NextLast modified: October 4, 2007