Must-Carry Question Still Open
Tough to Figure How Many Stations Rely on FCC Rules
By Ted Hearn -- Multichannel News, 9/9/2007 8:00:00 PM
Washington — Even though cable and broadcasters have been warring over must-carry rules for decades, one question remains unanswered: How many TV stations actually rely on the cable carriage mandate in effect since 1992? Finding the answer isn’t as easy as it might seem.
The backdrop for the inquiry is FCC chairman Kevin Martin’s effort to come up with new ways of forcing cable carriage of local TV-station content, including de facto dual carriage, multicast must-carry, or both. Granting must-carry rights to certain, undefined entities that lease excess digital spectrum from TV stations is another part of Martin’s forced-carriage idea.
But Martin is pushing his must-carry agenda in somewhat of a policy vacuum, because his agency doesn’t require its TV-station licensees to disclose whether they bargain for cable carriage or demand it.
| Doing The Math | |
|---|---|
| Tallying must-carry stations, based on FCC data. | |
|
SOURCE: FCC-published data |
|
| 1,756 | Total number of full-power U.S. TV stations eligible for must-carry. |
| – | |
| 386 | The subset of public stations whose only option is must carry. |
| = | |
| 1,370 | Total number of commercial TV stations eligible for must-carry. |
| – | |
| 840 | The number of affiliates of the Big Four networks (assuming 4 stations each in 210 markets). |
| = | |
| 530 | Number of commercial TV stations as must-carry candidates. |
| + | |
| 386 | Public stations whose only option is must-carry. |
| = | |
| 916 | Total number of must-carry stations. |
“Under our rules, this is not reported and we don’t track it,” FCC spokesman Clyde Ensslin said.
Generally, both cable and broadcasters say that must-carry helps independent stations airing Spanish-language and religious programming. Univision Communications, a major Spanish broadcaster, and the National Religious Broadcasters, strongly support Martin.
Private sources that might know the true scope of must-carry’s use were equally unhelpful.
The National Cable & Telecommunications Association and the National Association of Broadcasters, groups which have poured untold millions into the carriage battle, don’t keep a must-carry station census.
“Because carriage negotiations between broadcast-TV stations and cable operators are confidential, the total number of stations that choose must-carry status is unknown,” said NAB director of media relations Kristopher Jones.
An NCTA spokesman said his organization wouldn’t comment.
Neither Nielsen Media Research nor SNL Kagan had the answer.
“No, we don’t know the exact number. It is generally the weaker TV stations with less compelling programming and lower or no discernible ratings that go that route,” an SNL Kagan analyst said.
“Those are private agreements between the two parties,” said Nielsen associate communications analyst Brandi Preston.
Court decisions and analyst reports have contained some carriage data, but nothing definitive.
In September 2005, a Kane Reece study prepared for the NCTA assumed there were five must-carry stations on average in each local TV market. Nationally, that would mean 1,050 must-carry stations spread across 210 individual markets.
In 1997, the Supreme Court’s must-carry analysis focused on the number of cable channels occupied, not on the number of must-carry stations broadcasting. The country’s 12,000 cable systems, the court said, had 500,000 channels in total, with 30,000 channels occupied by all TV stations, including 6,000 added after the passage of the 1992 must-carry law.
FCC-published data, including quarterly TV-station totals, can assist in producing a sort of back-of-the-envelope estimate on the number of must-carry stations nationally.
The U.S. has 1,756 full-power TV stations eligible for must-carry. This total includes 386 public stations whose only option is must-carry. It also includes the owned-and-operated stations of ABC, CBS, NBC and Fox and their independent affiliates. Most analysts assume that affiliates of the Big Four bargain their way onto cable.
Assuming the existence of 840 affiliates of the Big Four networks (four stations each in 210 markets), that would leave 530 commercial TV stations as must-carry candidates. After adding back the 386 public stations, the total number of must-carry stations would be 916, or 13% below the Kane Reece estimate for the NCTA.
But the national must-carry station estimate is probably a bit high, because it wouldn’t account for those independent commercial stations that elect retransmission consent owing to their strong local news departments or their control of some local professional sports rights.
