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Television channels, including broadcast and cable channels, negotiate with cable or satellite operators in a number of ways to receive carriage. These negotiations are regulated by complex set of FCC rules.

Must Carry and Retransmission Consent

By law, broadcasters have the option of demanding carriage by a cable or satellite operator. If they turn down that “must carry” option, the cable provider is legally bound to negotiate a “retransmission consent” agreement on the technical details of carrying the broadcast station.

Unfortunately, these negotiations often break down or otherwise cause audiences to be unable to receive certain broadcast stations. In March 2010, for example, retransmission negotiations between Cablevision and ABC caused three million viewers to miss a portion of the Academy Awards.

MAP is working with the Federal Communications Commission to develop a clearer, more up-to-date set of rules for retransmission consent deals.

Program Access Rules

Cable channels owned by cable operators, such as Comcast or Time Warner, are required by law to have reasonable negotiations with competing cable and DBS companies regarding the carriage of cable channels they do not own. This rule exists to avoid instances in which the cable provider could favor carriage of those channels in which it has an ownership stake.

MAP had a major victory on program access in January 2010, when, after working with MAP and other public interest groups, the FCC closed a significant “terrestrial loophole” that allowed cable companies to withhold carriage of sports and other programming from competitors.

Unforunately, these rules are far from perfect — in fact, they are largely unenforceable. MAP seeks to help the Commission create a better definition of program access rules.

Program Carriage Rules

According to these rules, independent programmers, such as Food Network, have a legal right to request cable and satellite operators to enter into negotiation for carriage. Further, cable and satellite operators cannot demand to receive a financial stake in these independent programmer companies as a condition of carriage.

However, similar to program access rules, the Commission has not had success in enforcing program carriage rules. Indeed, most violations of these rules remain unaddressed by the FCC, due to the difficulty in proving the violation. MAP believes stronger and more definite rules should be created to address these important issues.

Read about MAP’s efforts to stop the merger of Comcast and NBC Universal, in which these rules are strongly implicated.

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