Opinion ID: 185698
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: History of Costa's License

Text: 12 Costa is the licensee of television station KJLA 3 located in Ventura, California. Ventura is in Ventura County. Although Arbitron included Ventura County in the ADI market for greater Los Angeles, it assigned KJLA to the Santa Barbara-Santa Maria-San Luis Obispo ADI market. Nielson, however, has always placed KJLA in the Los Angeles DMA. The change in market designation results in a corresponding change in KJLA's must carry right because a broadcast station generally has a right to carriage within its market only. While the Commission ordered carriage of KJLA throughout the Los Angeles market once the station was assigned to that DMA, it continued to exclude certain communities that were the subject of earlier 614(h) market modification rulings. See Costa de Oro Television, Inc., 15 FCC Rcd 15,069, 2000 WL 1145477 (2000); Costa de Oro Television, Inc., 15 FCC Rcd 12,637, 2000 WL 913631 (2000). 13 As part of the ADI-to-DMA change, the Commission considered, and sought comment on, the continuing validity of its earlier 614(h) market modification rulings made using ADI data. Costa requested the Commission to reconsider de novo any prior section 614(h) ruling based on ADI data if, as in KJLA's case, the ADI-to-DMA change resulted in the reassignment of a station to a new market. In the Second Report and Order on Definition of Markets for Purposes of the Cable Television Broadcast Signal Carriage Rates, 14 FCC Rcd 8366, 1999 WL 329672 (1999), ( Second Order ), the Commission rejected Costa's request. It also decided to continue using ADI data to process any market modification request filed before the effective date of the change to DMA, that is, before January 1, 2000. In its Second Order, however, the FCC noted that, [i]n cases in which the conversion to DMAs will have a direct consequence, we will take the future DMA assignment into account. Second Order ¶ 42. With respect to prior market modification rulings, then, where the Commission has previously decided to delete a community from a station's ADI market, that deletion will remain in effect after the conversion to DMAs. Second Order ¶ 43. Costa petitioned for reconsideration and the FCC denied the petition, stating that we continue to believe that the reasoned determinations reached in market modification proceedings should not be upset as a result of the conversion to the DMA standard. Order on Reconsideration on Definition of Markets for Purposes of the Cable Television Broadcast Signal Carriage Rules, 16 FCC Rcd 5022, 2001 WL 203976 (2001), ( Reconsideration Order ) ¶ 17. 14 In the First Order, the Commission sought comment on measures to expedite the modification process by establishing more focused and standardized evidentiary specifications. First Order, 11 FCC Rcd at 6225. It subsequently issued a list of information required to be included in each modification request. Second Order, 14 FCC Rcd at 8385-86 ¶ 44. Significant here, the Second Order also encouraged a petitioner to provide a more specific technical coverage showing, through the submission of service contour prediction maps that take terrain into account, particularly maps using the Longley-Rice prediction methodology. Id. at 8388 ¶ 50. Costa's petition for reconsideration challenged the use of the Longley-Rice method as contrary to the intent of the Cable Act because it allegedly imposed an unreasonable financial burden by reintroducing the UHF handicap. See Costa's Pet. for Recons. at 7; see also Reconsideration Order, 16 FCC Rcd at 5026 ¶ 11 n. 28 (UHF handicap refers to the difficulty that UHF stations had in accessing all of their potential audience over the air because of the inferior signal propagation characteristic of the UHF band). Without questioning the accuracy of the Longley-Rice maps, Costa's concern was that a cable company using Longley-Rice had yet another quiver in [its] bow with which to avoid must-carry obligations. Id. In the Reconsideration Order, the Commission emphasized with regard to Longley-Rice that it is frequently important in the market modification process to find as precisely as possible the contours formed by a station's signal. Reconsideration Order, 16 FCC Rcd at 5027 ¶ 13-14. 15 Costa petitions for review of portions of both the Second Order and the Reconsideration Order.