Opinion ID: 760117
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: The 1992 Cable Act and New Must-Carry Rights

Text: 8 The 1992 Cable Act mandates that [e]ach cable operator shall carry, on the cable system of that operator, the signals of local commercial television stations ... as provided by this section. 47 U.S.C. § 534(a). A local commercial television station is defined to mean any full power television broadcast station ... licensed and operating on a channel regularly assigned to its community by the Commission that, with respect to a particular cable system, is within the same television market as the cable system. 47 U.S.C. § 534(h)(1)(A). No one disputes that the television stations owned by petitioners fall within this category. Those stations are WLNY-TV, licensed to Riverhead, Long Island; WRNN-TV, licensed to Kingston, New York; and WHAI-TV, licensed to Bridgeport, Connecticut. Thus, they possess must-carry rights entitling them to carriage of their broadcast signal by cable companies located within the same television market. 9 To determine whether a cable operator and a broadcast station are within the same market, Congress defined in the 1992 Cable Act what constitutes a broadcast station's market. See 47 U.S.C. § 534(h)(1)(C)(i) (1994) (amended Feb. 8, 1996). 1 For purposes of this appeal, all parties agree that petitioners' default market under the definition is the New York Arbitron Area of Dominant Influence (ADI), and that intervenors are within this ADI, which includes parts of Connecticut, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and New York, including the five boroughs and Long Island. None of the petitioners are located within New York City itself, but instead reside on the fringes or rim of the New York ADI. An ADI is a geographic area defining television markets in the United States based on measured viewing patterns around a centrally located city. Congress also stated in the definition that a broadcast station's market would be its ADI except that, following a written request, the [FCC] may, with respect to a particular television broadcast station, include additional communities within its television market or exclude communities from such station's television market to better effectuate the purposes of this section. Id. 10 When the FCC receives a request to modify a station's market, the statute instructs that the agency shall afford particular attention to the value of localism through the consideration of such factors as: 11 (I) whether the station, or other stations located in the same area, have been historically carried on the cable system or systems within such community; 12 (II) whether the television station provides coverage or other local service to such community; 13 (III) whether any other television station that is eligible to be carried by a cable system in such community in fulfillment of the requirements of this section provides news coverage of issues of concern to such community or provides carriage or coverage of sporting and other events of interest to the community; and 14 (IV) evidence of viewing patterns in cable and noncable households within the areas served by the cable system or systems in such community. 15 47 U.S.C. § 534(h)(1)(C)(ii). 16 Congress enacted the statute including these factors after previous attempts to adopt must-carry regulations by the FCC were held unconstitutionally overbroad. See Quincy Cable TV, Inc. v. FCC, 768 F.2d 1434 (D.C.Cir.1985) (FCC regulations held to violate petitioner cable company's First Amendment rights because the FCC failed to demonstrate a substantial governmental interest and, if the must-carry rules did serve a substantial interest, they were not narrowly tailored to the goal of protecting local broadcasting); Century Communications Corp. v. FCC, 835 F.2d 292 (D.C.Cir.1987) (accord).