776
Souter, J., concurring
ject to a standard level of scrutiny ought to be recognized at this point; while we have found cable television different from broadcast with respect to the factors justifying intrusive access requirements under the rule in Red Lion Broadcasting Co. v. FCC, 395 U. S. 367 (1969), see Turner Broadcasting System, Inc. v. FCC, 512 U. S. 622, 638-639 (1994) (finding that Red Lion's spectrum scarcity rationale had no application to cable), today's plurality opinion rightly observes that the characteristics of broadcast radio that rendered indecency particularly threatening in Pacifica, that is, its intrusion into the house and accessibility to children, are also present in the case of cable television, ante, at 744-745. It would seem, then, that the appropriate category for cable indecency should be as contextually detailed as the Pacifica example, and settling upon a definitive level-of-scrutiny rule of review for so complex a category would require a subtle judgment; but there is even more to be considered, enough more to demand a subtlety tantamount to prescience.
All of the relevant characteristics of cable are presently in a state of technological and regulatory flux. Recent and far-reaching legislation not only affects the technical feasibility of parental control over children's access to undesirable material, see, e. g., Telecommunications Act of 1996, § 551, 110 Stat. 139-142 (provision for "V-chip" to block sexually explicit or violent programs), but portends fundamental changes in the competitive structure of the industry and, therefore, the ability of individual entities to act as bottlenecks to the free flow of information, see Title III, id., at 114-128 (promoting competition in cable services). As cable and telephone companies begin their competition for control over the single wire that will carry both their services, we can hardly settle rules for review of regulation on the assumption that cable will remain a separable and useful category of First Amendment scrutiny. And as broadcast, cable, and the cybertechnology of the Internet and the World Wide Web approach the day of using a common receiver, we can
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