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Specifically, at question was whether or not a private non-profit, appointed by the state to operate in place of a public org, was bound by the same 1st amendment requirements.

It does bring up some interesting questions. Could a governor outsource specific depts and free them from 1st amendment concerns?

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> Could a governor outsource specific depts and free them from 1st amendment concerns?

At face-value it seems so, which is scary.

And how about other amendments?

It's very scary if the court is arguing that the government can hire a private company to provide a service or perform a task and that private company is not bound by the constitutional responsibilities that the government would've been bound by had it provided the same service or performed the same task.

Can't avoid taking it at face value - the city outsourced its public channel to a private operator which was enough to lead five Justices on another trip down the garden path to fencing limits on government to government actors in an orthodox sense. These 5-4 splits are scary and dangerous.

I think this situation is somewhat different from your characterization. It isn't really a "public channel" that somehow belongs to the city/state. It is privately provided service that is just mandated as a side-effect of granting the private company a cable franchise.

But I'm struggling to come up with a good analogy that involves private infrastructure that exists only due to government action with a 1st-amendment component.

Not the same question but "if the government doesnt like what the outsourced department is saying, they can replace them." Indirectly they could control speech.