FCC granted petition by Central Mich. U. (CMU) for waiver of its cro...
FCC granted petition by Central Mich. U. (CMU) for waiver of its cross-ownership rule to enable university to operate noncommercial station WCMU-TV Mt. Pleasant, which overlaps service area of its video distribution system on university campus. Commission said it…
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didn’t believe policy objectives of cross- ownership rules would be hurt by granting university waiver because as noncommercial station, WCMU-TV didn’t compete economically with other local broadcast stations. As such, CMU doesn’t have same incentives to indulge in anticompetitive conduct that commercial cable operator might because it doesn’t compete with other local stations for ad revenue. Also, CMU’s video system isn’t available outside university, it said. Commission said it avoided addressing issue whether CMU’s video distribution system was cable system because it had decided to grant waiver. In its petition, CMU had said its video distribution system wasn’t cable system because it didn’t have subscribers and didn’t use public rights-of-way.