Noting that the fundamental philosophical barrier to fashioning an appropriate model of cable television rights is the equitable balancing of individual and collective First Amendment claims against the medium, this paper offers an approach for such a balancing that is based on the underlying dimension of the inherent social utility in expression. Various models of cable rights (Print, Broadcast, Public Forum, Common Carrier, and Public Utility) are tested against the resultant standard and each is found defective on either practical or philosophical grounds. It is suggested that under current constitutional interpretation only the Print model of cable rights is logically acceptable and as such nearly every form of federal, state, and local control over cable violates the First Amendment rights of the cable operator. However, since this conclusion does not satisfy the proposed aim of constitutional balancing, there should be a reinterpretation of the pivotal "Tornillo v. Miami Herald" case that would leave intact the outcome of the case as it pertains to newspapers, but would eliminate the possibility of generalizing the case to cable. This would permit the adoption of equitable balancing on the legitimate basis of market monopoly in one specifically defined medium, resulting in a model of cable rights that services the valid claims of the collective while preventing unwarranted infringement of the operators's rights. The paper's 131 footnotes are appended. (FL)