Explain a must carry

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I've seen examples where owners shuffle subs around to get stations on cable

Minneapolis added Comet on 4/15. They put it in the place of GetTV (-2) and moved GetTV to a newly created -4 station. By putting Comet on the -2 that gave them cable coverage (as WUCW-DT2 was carried on cable). GetTV is not on cable in most of the Mpls metro area now
 
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Ancient page from the EKB's faq section - http://dishuser.org/mustcarry.php
I wish I had the time to devote to things like the EKB like I used to. But I prefer being employed. :D

---Rules for Cable must carry are similar but have some unique differences.


The FCC implemented a rule as directed by Congress essentially saying that if a DBS Carrier (Dish or DirecTV) carry one channel in a certain city (Designated Marketing Area or DMA), they must carry all the stations in that city. But there are lots of rules that apply to the stations as well. So not all the channels in a DMA qualify for Must Carry status.

In order for a station to qualify for must carry the following conditions must be met:

  1. The station has to ASK for must carry status within the designated election period as established by the FCC. If a station does not ask to be included in the local package within the designated time period, the DBS provider is under no obligation to carry the station, though they still may chose to do so.
  2. The station MUST be an FCC licensed full-power station to the DMA in question. Licensed low power channels and Class A Stations DO NOT qualify for must carry status. Stations licensed to foreign countries (Canada - ?c? stations and Mexico ?x? stations) DO NOT qualify for must carry status.
  3. The station may NOT ask for any consideration or compensation in return for allowing the satellite company to carry the channel. If a station asks for ANYTHING it waives its right for must carry status until the next election period (usually 3 years)
  4. The station may NOT be a repeater or substantially duplicate another channel's programming within the same DMA unless they are in different states. This means that if there are two channels in the same DMA that mostly show the same programming at the same time and are both in the same state, ONLY ONE has to be carried under the must carry rules. But if the two stations are in two different states, BOTH have to be carried under the rules if they ask.
  5. The station MUST provide a ?good quality? signal to the satellite company's local point of presence (POP). ?Good Quality? is subjective and the FCC has been involved in a few disputes, but if a station's over the air signal is not satisfactory, the TV station must provide their signal via fiber or other conveyance at THEIR expense.
  6. Non-commercial/Educational stations (PBS and EDU) have different but similar rules
Any stations that do not qualify for, or waive must carry status or elect retransmission consent COULD be carried by retransmission consent between the station and the DBS Carrier, but the stations that do not qualify for must carry cannot force the DBS company to carry the station.

What is Retransmission Consent?
Retransmission consent is nothing more than a mutual agreement between the satellite or cable carrier and the broadcast station allowing the carrier to offer the channel to subscribers. In agreements such as these, anything goes. It is up to the two parties. The ?Big? stations in any market usually elect to ask the carriers for retransmission consent and force the carriers to pay the station for the privilege to redistribute the signal to the stations market. Stations that elect retransmission consent cannot force the satellite carriers to carry the channel until the next election cycle rolls around, and, if the station feels it's in its best interest, ask for must carry status. The News Monitor has a list of stations currently off due to retransmisson consent disputes.
 
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To add a bit on PBS stations - PBS has a national contract that includes most cable providers:
https://www.ncta.com/news-and-events/media-room/article/1798

This contract was renewed this year:
http://www.pbs.org/about/blogs/news...-television-digital-cable-carriage-agreement/

Basically, each PBS station will get to choose four of their digital channels to be carried on cable systems, which can be x.1, x.2, x.3, and x.4 - or could be x.1, x.4, x.5, x.6 - any four of them that they want, so long as all programming carried is noncommercial in nature. Also, cable companies do not have to carry a public broadcasting channel when it duplicates one they already carry for more than 12 hours a day. (Example: If a market has two PBS stations and both stations carry the Create network 24x7 on a subchannel, only one of those must be carried on cable. But if one of them had Create for 12 hours a day and local programming for the other 12 hours (or any other non-duplicated programming) then both would be carried.

I wish we had a deal similar to this for all stations - however I would, for commercial stations, keep the nonduplication rule and add a rule limiting commercial time and paid programming hours so that any channels carried on cable would need to have actual programming not just shopping. I think it would be reasonable to limit program-length commercials to airing between 12 midnight and 6 am on such channels, and limit the amount of commercial breaks to an average of those on the main channel. (So if your x.1 has 20 minutes of commercials per hour, so could all your subchannels.)
 
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jegrant said:
Basically, each PBS station will get to choose four of their digital channels to be carried on cable systems, which can be x.1, x.2, x.3, and x.4 - or could be x.1, x.4, x.5, x.6 - any four of them that they want, so long as all programming carried is noncommercial in nature.
Click to expand...
Interesting info on that. The PBS near the lake house (KAWB Brainerd) has 5 subs and Charter seems to carry 5 of the 6 in the area. They carry the main PBS (-1), Kids (-3), Create (-4), Plus (-5) and MN Channel (-6) but not FNX. Some providers carry all 6 stations
http://lptv.org/about/channel-list/

Also, cable companies do not have to carry a public broadcasting channel when it duplicates one they already carry for more than 12 hours a day. (Example: If a market has two PBS stations and both stations carry the Create network 24x7 on a subchannel, only one of those must be carried on cable. But if one of them had Create for 12 hours a day and local programming for the other 12 hours (or any other non-duplicated programming) then both would be carried.
Click to expand...
That sounds logical

I wish we had a deal similar to this for all stations - however I would, for commercial stations, keep the nonduplication rule and add a rule limiting commercial time and paid programming hours so that any channels carried on cable would need to have actual programming not just shopping. I think it would be reasonable to limit program-length commercials to airing between 12 midnight and 6 am on such channels, and limit the amount of commercial breaks to an average of those on the main channel. (So if your x.1 has 20 minutes of commercials per hour, so could all your subchannels.)
Click to expand...
damn in that case Minneapolis would have NO stations on the weekends. It seems like if there is no network programming, the Big 4 show paid programs (and 2 of my Big 4 are O&O).
There have been Saturdays when I looked in the guide on all 7 stations (Big 4, CW, My, Independent) and they have had paid programs on in the same half hour on weekends.
 
Ice, I wouldn't apply the paid programming rules to the x.1 channels, just the subchannels. :)
 
oh I see

but its still crazy when on a weekend I'll see 6 or even all 7 network stations have paid programing on the same time block in the middle of the day

thank goodness for the diginets :)
 
Iceberg said:
oh I see

but its still crazy when on a weekend I'll see 6 or even all 7 network stations have paid programing on the same time block in the middle of the day

thank goodness for the diginets :)
Click to expand...

I know what you mean. It's like that most places. So dumb.
 
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