Because of the United States Court of Appeal's ruling ("Quincy Cable TV vs. Federal Communications Commission") that government regulation of what cable television stations can broadcast violates their First Amendment rights, a number of consequences have arisen concerning what cable stations are required to broadcast (must-carry rules), and how much power and monopoly they can have. Cable stations were originally intended to retransmit local programming to areas that were too remote to pick up regular television signals, but protests were filed in 1980 to remove restrictions on cable programing on the basis that such regulations violate the stations' freedom of speech. The court handed down the "Quincy" decision based on the idea that cable stations have competition and could not form monopolies, but this has not been the case in several areas of the country, where one or two services have dominated viewer services, and as a consequence have blocked out the local viewers' ability to receive local public television, unless the cable service they subscribe to carries it. Solutions, such as the requirement that cable stations install A/B switches that would allow viewers to switch off cable television and receive public television, have not been successful, due to problems with quality reception of local channels without cable, and viewer apathy to public television. Such problems may ultimately reduce public funding for educational television, and cause it to finally collapse. (JC)