Cite as: 520 U. S. 180 (1997)
O'Connor, J., dissenting
"[t]he opportunity to sell such advertising gives cable programmers an additional value to operators above broadcast stations . . . ." Brief for Federal Appellees 24. But that "additional value" arises only because the must-carry provisions require cable operators to carry broadcast signals without alteration. 47 U. S. C. § 534(b)(3). Judge Williams was correct in noting that the Government cannot have "a 'substantial interest' in remedying a competitive distortion that arises entirely out of a detail in its own purportedly remedial legislation." 910 F. Supp. 734, 777 (DC 1995) (dissenting opinion). Second, appellees claim that since cable operators compete directly with broadcasters for some advertising revenue, operators will profit if they can drive broadcasters out of the market and capture their advertising revenue. Even if the record before Congress included substantial evidence that "advertising revenue would be of increasing importance to cable operators as subscribership growth began to flatten," ante, at 203, it does not necessarily follow that Congress could reasonably find that the quest for advertising revenues supplies cable operators with incentives to engage in predatory behavior, or that must-carry is a reasonable response to such incentives. There is no dispute that a cable system depends primarily upon its subscriber base for revenue. A cable operator is therefore unlikely to drop a widely viewed station in order to capture advertising revenues— which, according to the figures of appellees' expert, account for between one and five percent of the total revenues of most large cable systems. Declaration of James N. Dertouzos ¶ 22 (App. 967). In doing so, it would risk losing subscribers. Nevertheless, appellees contend that cable operators will drop some broadcast stations in spite of, and not because of, viewer preferences. The principal opinion suggests that viewers are likely to subscribe to cable even though they prefer certain over-the-air programming to cable programming, because they would be willing to trade access to their preferred channel for access to dozens of cable
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