Re: TV Guide and TV50

["Douglas J. Broda" <dougb@albany.net>]

At 01:09 AM 4/12/97 -0400, Doug Bassett wrote:
>>What defines the territory within which cable systems are obliged to 
>>carry "local" broadcast stations?
>>
>>---
>>Richard Aquinas Chonak, rac@gabriel.cambridge.ma.us
>>
>I was wondering the same thing...we have only one station from Springfield
>(WGBY 57) on our cable system, which acording to my estimates, is a bit
>closer than Derry.
>And Worcester is even closer. This is the current line-up of broadcast
>stations on the local cable system here:
>
>cable Call  Location
>ch.
>2  WGBY 57  Springfield
>3  FOX      National Feed
>4  WBZ 4    Boston
>5  WCVB 5   Boston
>7  WHDH 7   Boston
>9  WMUR 9   Manchester
>10 WCDC 19  North Adams (WTEN 10 Albany)
>11 WVTA 41  Windsor
>12 W62AT 62 Bellows Falls (WCAX 3 Burlington)
>13 WNNE 31  Hartford (Vt)
>14 WNDS 50  Derry
>15 WSBK 38  Boston
>16 WEKW 52  Keene (WENH 11 Durham)
>
>Until a couple of years ago, WGGB 40 occupied the space now held by WCVB.
>Also at this time WGBH was swapped for WGBY.
>
Well, I swiped a little quote from an FCC statement, which sorta explains
it a little:

...commercial television broadcast stations are entitled to assert
mandatory carriage rights on cable systems located within the station's
market. 
A station's market for this purpose is its "area of dominant influence" or
ADI as defined by the Arbitron audience research organization.  An ADI is a
geographic market designation that defines each television market exclusive
of others, based on measured viewing patterns.  Essentially, each county in
the United States is allocated to a market based on which home-market
stations receive a preponderance of total viewing hours in the county.  For
purposes of this calculation, both over-the-air and cable television
viewing are included.

Under the Act, however, the Commission is also directed to consider changes
in ADI areas. Section 614(h)(1)(C) provides that the Commission may:

     with respect to a particular television broadcast station, include
additional communities within its television market or exclude communities
from such station's television market to better effectuate the purposes of
this section.

In considering such requests, the Act provides that:

     the Commission shall afford particular attention to the value of
localism by taking into account such factors as --

          (I) whether the station, or other stations located in the same
area, have been historically carried on the cable system or systems within
such
community;

          (II) whether the television station provides coverage or other
local service to such community;

          (III) whether any other television station that is eligible to be
carried by a cable system in such community in fulfillment of the
requirements of this section provides news coverage of issues of concern to
such community or provides carriage or coverage of sporting and other
events of interest to the community; and

          (IV) evidence of viewing patterns in cable and noncable
households      within the areas served by the cable system or systems in
such community.


Clear as mud, huh?

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End of boston-radio-interest-digest V1 #12
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