BROADCASTERS AND CABLE DUEL ANEW OVER DTV MUST-CARRY RIGHTS
In latest skirmish of long-running DTV must-carry battle, broadcasting and cable interests fought over FCC’s authority to impose dual-carriage rules on cable operators during nation’s digital transition. Trade groups representing both industries filed fresh set of comments at Commission late Fri., challenging each other’s earlier arguments for and against DTV must-carry requirements (CD April 27 p3). Commenters pitted First Amendment rights of cable operators against broadcasters’ claims to mandatory cable carriage, seeking to convince agency to revise its Jan. ruling that tentatively concluded against dual carriage but left open possibility of changing its mind.
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Responding to earlier arguments by broadcasters, NCTA said Sec. 614 of Communications Act spelled out that carriage obligations were strictly limited to “those broadcast signals ‘which have been changed’ to a new broadcast standard.” NCTA argued that “this language can and should be read to mean that a broadcaster’s digital signal is entitled to carriage when it no longer transmits its analog signal.” In other words, it said, digital carriage is required “not when the broadcaster is in the midst of changing its signal from analog to digital but only after the signal ‘has been changed.'”
NCTA disputed broadcasters’ claims that cable operators should have to carry all of station’s digital video programming streams, not just its primary video signal. Group said interpreting “primary video” to mean all video streams would violate “plain meaning of the word” and “the statutory purpose of the Act.” It also contended that “requiring carriage of multiple video streams of a digital broadcaster would be constitutionally dubious at best,” just as dual-carriage rules “would raise serious First Amendment concerns.” In addition, NCTA dismissed broadcasters’ contentions that greater regulatory safeguards were needed against material degradation of DTV signals.
NAB, MSTV and ALTV said Commission could require cable operators to carry program-related material in digital signals because Sec. 614 gave agency authority to “adapt the cable carriage rules to the digital environment.” If agency “could not require digital carriage of program-related material, then cable operators would be free to refuse carriage of closed-captioning information, V-chip program ratings data and Nielsen Source Identification Codes,” groups said. “That certainly was not the intent of Congress when it directed the Commission to adopt rules that would assure cable carriage for digital signals.”
NAB, MSTV and ALTV also argued against NCTA’s earlier contention that new DTV-only stations were not entitled to mandatory carriage in analog format. They said FCC was “well within its authority” to require cable operators to carry such stations in either analog or digital form and dismissed cable arguments of First Amendment violations. “There is no more burden to a cable operator asked to carry a new station’s digital signal in analog format than there is to carry a new station’s analog signal,” groups said. They said that “limiting a digital-only station to digital cable carriage at this stage of the transition would effectively eliminate its audience and kill the station.”