Must carry rules?

[Garrett Wollman <wollman@lcs.mit.edu>]

<<On Tue, 8 Apr 2003 14:37:49 -0400, "Kevin Vahey" <k-vahey@attbi.com> said:

> COX cable in RI is restoring 4 5 and 7 in Pawtucket and Woonsocket 
> according to the Pawtucket Times and the reason they give is must 
> carry.

That's odd.

> How exactly is must carry computed these days?

It's really easy (hah!):

Every system (and DBS operator in a l-into-l market) must carry every
station which is in the Nielsen market they serve, and which can, by
any means available, deliver an adequate signal to their headend at no
cost to the operator.  There are certain rules about notification to
operators of must-carry status (or alternatively demanding
retransmission consent), and no system is required to carry stations
whose content entirely duplicates another station on the system.
There are additional rules requiring that a certain number of channels
(based on system capacity, as with must-carry) which must be offered
for leased access to all comers on a nondiscriminatory basis;
sometimes stations which are unable to qualify for must-carry will pay
for access.

(In Canada, by contrast, the CRTC licenses all cable systems and has
final say on channel lineups.)

> The Boston stations have always had a clean signal into RI though
> the revese was not the case ( urban legend has Great Blue Hill
> blocking 10 and 12 from inside 128) and of course 6 was washed out
> by 5.

6 is a good dozen miles farther away from Boston than the Rehoboth
stations.

-GAWollman