Before the FEDERAL COMMUNICATIONS COMMISSION Washington, DC 20554
In re Petition of ) ) Comcast Cable Communications, LLC ) MB Docket No. 16-258 On behalf of its subsidiaries and affiliates ) File No. CSR-8924-A ) For Modification of the Television Market of ) Station WYCI, Channel 40, Saranac Lake, New York )
To: Chief, Media Bureau
OPPOSITION TO PETITION FOR SPECIAL RELIEF
Cross Hill Communications, LLC (“CHC”), licensee of Station WYCI(DT) (FCC Facility
ID 77515) (“WYCI” or the “Station”), hereby opposes the above-captioned Petition for Special
Relief (the “Petition”) filed by Comcast Cable Communications, LLC (“Comcast”), on August 4,
2016,1 Comcast seeks relief from its obligation to carry WYCI2 in certain specified communities in the Burlington-Plattsburgh DMA where Comcast provides cable television service (“Cable
Communities”). Contrary to Comcast’s assertions, analysis of the five factors listed in the
Petition favors honoring CHC’s must-carry rights in almost every case, and Comcast’s recitation of the facts is incomplete and inaccurate. WYCI has historically been carried by Comcast in
many of the Cable Communities; WYCI carries a substantial amount of programming of local
1 Public Notice of the Petition was given by the Commission in Special Relief and Show Cause Petitions, Report No. 0444, released August 18, 2016. This Opposition is timely filed within the 20-day period provided for in Section 76.7(b)(1) of the Commission’s Rules.
2 Because Comcast does not dispute that WYCI has mandatory carriage rights in the absence of grant of the Petition, this Opposition will not document the fact that WYCI is a full power television station located in the same DMA as the cable systems, WYCI became a must-carry station by default when it did not make an affirmative carriage election by October 1, 2014. The 2014 election deadline occurred prior to CHC purchasing the Station. Subsequently, CHC notified Comcast in writing that Comcast’s failure to carry WYCI constituted a violation of the statutory carriage requirement, and Comcast then filed its Petition.
{00963818-1 } interest in the Cable Communities; carriage would promote access to in-state programming; and
WYCI provides local news and information for the small Cable Communities not offered by
stations in large cities central to the market.3
I. Introduction
It is important to put the facts of this proceeding in the proper context. CHC took
control of the Station only recently, in February of 2016,4 and it is in the process of building up a
station designed to provide significant amounts of unique local programming to viewers in the
market.
The principals of CHC own and operate the Yankee Communications Network (“YCN”), which has been providing local television programming in New Hampshire and Vermont for over 40 years. Station WYCI is part of the YCN. In the late 1990’s, YCN moved its' operations to New London, New Hampshire to serve independent cable operators, and started work in the Dartmouth/Lake Sunapee Region of New Hampshire and Vermont.
When Station WYCU-LP (Charlestown, New Hampshire) and its sister station, WYCX-
CD (Manchester, Vermont), became available for sale in 2011, CHC then purchased them and
began the process of upgrading their facilities to digital. This was all part of the vision and
strategy to continue YCN's hyper-local programming commitment to Vermont and New
Hampshire. In 2012 work began on YCN News, a daily news program that is focused on a large
portion of communities in Vermont and New Hampshire that are part of the Burlington-
Plattsburgh DMA. Next came YCN's production of local sporting events called Game of the
3 The information in this Opposition regarding WYCI’s programming service is limited to its service to the Cable Communities, and does not address its service to other communities in the DMA, including Saranac Lake, New York. 4 See FCC File No. BALCDT-20131115DM, consummated February 29, 2016. Because CHC did not become the licensee of WYCI until this year, it did not have an opportunity to protest Comcast’s dropping the station until recently.
{00963818-1 }2
Week, then two video-magazine style conversational shows: Kearsarge Chronicle, and River
Valley Chronicle, plus its political talk-show, Capital Connections. YCN airs many TV specials
yearly like the Warner Fall Foliage Festival Parade, The Area Choir Christmas Concert, Mount
Sunapee Expansions Hearings, and for 15 years the annual band and chorus concerts of local
high schools.
In 40 years of providing video programming, YCN has never wavered in its commitment to local programming. In 1986, YCN was chosen as the winner of the prestigious national Cable
Ace Award for “Overall Commitment to Local Programming.” It has been recognized by the
New Hampshire Association of Broadcasters for YCN’s Game of the Week, and by the Lake
Sunapee Region Chamber of Commerce as the 2015 “Business of the Year.”
With the success of their New Hampshire and Vermont stations, and fitting those profiles
of being rural North Country operations, CHC then contracted to purchase Station WYCI(DT) at
Saranac Lake, New York, closing on that sale in February of 2016. Along with the commitment
to purchase, CHC assisted the former licensee in upgrading the Station to digital, and it
commenced broadcasting in HD. Since then, the communities in Northern Vermont have been
included in YCN's daily diet of local news and public affairs programming, along with the
inclusion of live local sporting events broadcast exclusively on WYCI.
CHC and YCN will continue to expand its programming throughout northern New York,
New Hampshire and Vermont. YCN is negotiating with the University of Vermont to begin
carrying its sports, including its soccer and hockey games. This will supplement the 10
Vermont high school football games that the Station will carry this Fall as part of its on-going
Game of the Week program. YCN continues its local programming on WYCI with its own
version of YCN News along with fresh editions of Capital Connections. In addition, CHC will
{00963818-1 }3
premiere its latest local program on the Station, Adirondack Chronicle, on January 1, 2017.
CHC also is working with Lyndon State College, (in Lyndon, Vermont) to begin carrying their
award-winning News 7 daily news show.5
CHC believes that WYCI is the only full-power station licensed to the Burlington-
Plattsburgh DMA that is not currently carried by Comcast in the Cable Communities. WYCI
provides local programming that is unavailable from any other source, and clearly contributes to
the “dissemination of information from a multiplicity of sources” that the must-carry
requirements were designed to protect.6 Yet it is forced to compete with stations whose
programming is carried throughout the market on Comcast’s systems.
After 40 years of hyper-local programming, YCN, through the Station, will continue to offer television programming to rural viewers that focuses on their communities and activities while also providing local non-profit organizations a voice in their towns. The Station already offers significant amounts of local programming of direct interest to the residents of the Cable
Communities, and that local programming offering will continue to grow. As shown below,
CHC is not building up this local programming service in virgin territory – the Station has a history of cable carriage on many of Comcast Cable Communities. In any event, the
Commission should not allow Comcast to use its Petition to kill off the Station’s growing local
programming contribution to the Cable Communities.
5 See, http://lyndonstate.edu/archives/college-news-7-broadcast-receiving-national-recognition/. 6 See Turner Broad. Sys., Inc. v. FCC, 520 U.S. 180, 189 (1997), citing Turner Broad. Sys., Inc. v FCC, 512 U.S. 622, 662 (1994).
{00963818-1 }4
II. WYCI Has a Documented History of Carriage in Many of the Cable Communities.
Comcast asserts that WYCI has never been carried by its systems in the Cable
Communities.7 However, that statement is demonstrably false, as Comcast’s own publications
indicate otherwise. WYCI’s previous call letters were WNMN.8 Attached hereto as Exhibit 1
are Comcast’s published channel line-ups, dated 2011-2014,9 for many communities in Vermont
and New Hampshire, all showing carriage of WNMN on Channel 80 in the Limited Basic Tier.
It is clear that for at least three years through 2014, the Station was carried on at least 32 of the
Cable Communities,10 as well as at least 8 additional nearby communities served by Comcast in
New Hampshire and Vermont.11 Thus, there is historical carriage of the Station by Comcast in
many of the Cable Communities, including as recently as 2014.12
7 See Petition at page 3 (“WYCI has not been historically carried on the cable system lineups that serve the Cable Communities, despite the more than 10 years it has been licensed to operate.”). 8 See Petition at Exhibit 8. 9 The dates of the channel line-ups for the first three pages are on the upper right hand corner – “12.11” (December 2011), “10.12” (October 2012), “01.13” (January 2013), and the last page has “0414” (April 2014) in the bottom right corner and “© 2014” in the bottom left corner. 10 The 32 Cable Communities in which carriage of the Station during 2012-2014 is shown are: Canaan, Charlestown, Claremont, Cornish, Croydon, Enfield, Grantham, Hanover, Lebanon, Lyme, Newport, Plainfield, and Sunapee, New Hampshire; and Andover, Bridgewater, Cavendish, Chester, Hartford, Hartland, Hartland North, Ludlow, Norwich, Perkinsville, Plymouth, Pomfret, Reading, Springfield, Weathersfield, West Windsor, Weston, Windsor, and Woodstock, Vermont. The channel line-up for 2011 shows carriage of the same Cable Communities as above, with the exception of Hartford, Hartland North, Norwich, and Pomfret, Vermont. In describing historical carriage of the Station by Comcast, CHC uses the phrase “at least” because due to taking ownership of the Station in 2016, CHC has limited access to documentation of cable carriage of the Station prior to 2016. CHC has been able to access on-line editions of the Vermont TV Magazine of the Rutland (Vermont) Herald. Channel line-ups from September 11, 2010; May 5, 2012 and June 29, 2013 show carriage of a station WGMU on channel position 80 of the Comcast system in Rutland (as well as Brandon, Proctor and Wallingford). See Exhibit 1A attached hereto. That channel position 80 is the same channel position in which Comcast carried Station WMNM/WYCI on other systems. This is because the previous time broker of WMNM/WYCI was also the licensee of low power station WGMU in Burlington, which it used as a translator for the primary Station WMNM/WYCI. There may be additional documentation not accessible to CHC showing carriage of the Station on some or all of the remaining Cable Communities. Unlike CHC, Comcast certainly has access to documentation of the channel line-ups in the Cable Communities, and thus its assertion that it never carried the Station is disingenuous, at best.
11 The 8 additional communities in which carriage of the Station is shown are: Andover, Danbury, Hill, New London, Salisbury, and Wilmot, New Hampshire; and Landgrove and Londonderry, Vermont.
{00963818-1 }5
In sum, any argument that WYCI has no historical carriage in the area is simply
incorrect. The Station has a history of carriage not only on many of the Cable Communities, but
also on other Comcast cable systems near the Cable Communities. By dropping WYCI,
Comcast has changed, not perpetuated, the status quo and is bucking rather than following the
trend among cable operators in the region.13 In any case, this statutory factor should be credited to the Station.
III. The Station Provides Local Service to the Cable Communities.
CHC does not dispute Comcast’s assertion that WYCI’s noise-limited signal contour
does not cover the Cable Communities. Comcast does not dispute the fact that CHC has offered
12 While the Station may not have been carried on some of the Cable Communities in the last two years, the Commission has previously found that even though a station was not carried on particular cable systems in the previous 10 years, the fact of prior carriage on the systems is probative of the station’s cable market, and the fact that the cable operator dropped carriage of the station does not necessarily indicate that the station is not in the same market as the cable system. See, Erie County Cablevision, Inc., 13 FCC Rcd 6403 (CSB, 1998) at para. 16.
13 Since taking ownership of the Station, CHC has been working with other cable operators in the Burlington-Plattsburgh DMA to commence carriage of the Station. For example, cable operator Metrocast has recently informed CHC that on October 1, 2016, it will commence carriage of the Station in the communities of Bristol, Bridgewater, Alexandria and Hebron, which are all in Grafton County, New Hampshire, the same county as many of the Comcast Cable Communities. See, email correspondence in Exhibit 2 hereto. In addition, CHC is working closely with Charter/Time Warner to commence carriage of the Station in the communities of Newport and St. Johnsbury, Vermont (along with Plattsburgh, New York). See, email correspondence in Exhibit 3 hereto. Newport and St. Johnsbury are near the Comcast Cable Communities. In the case of both of these cable operators, the only issue was setting up the delivery of the Station’s signal to the proper cable headend by alternate means (satellite). As these operators add carriage of the Station, CHC will supplement the record in this proceeding, consistent with its requirements under Section 76.6(a)(6) of the Commission’s Rules. In regards to carriage of the Station in other communities nearby the Comcast Cable Communities, the Commission has previously found that, while carriage of a station in communities nearby those at issue in a petition is not a factor specified in Section 614 of the Communications Act, carriage of the station on nearby systems can serve as evidence to define the logical scope of a station’s cable market. See, e.g., Comcast of Central New Jersey, 13 FCC Rcd. 1656 (CSB, 1997) at para. 16. Indeed, Comcast’s own historical carriage of the Station in 8 additional communities (See Exhibit 1 -- Andover, Danbury, Hill, New London, Salisbury, and Wilmot, New Hampshire; and Landgrove and Londonderry, Vermont) nearby the Cable Communities is further evidence that the Cable Communities are within the Station’s natural market.
{00963818-1 }6
to deliver a good quality signal from WYCI to Comcast’s headend by alternative means, as
permitted by Section 76.55(c)(3) of the Commission’s Rules.14
While Comcast asserts that this lack of over-the-air signal coverage over the Cable
Communities shows that they should be removed from the Station’s cable market, the fact remains that it is likewise difficult for other stations located in the Burlington-Plattsburgh DMA, and carried in the Cable Communities, to cover all of the Cable Communities with an over-the- air signal. For example, attached as Exhibit 5 is a Longley-Rice coverage map for Station
WCAX-TV (the CBS affiliate in Burlington) and Comcast’s list of the Cable Communities.
CHC’s analysis finds that Station WCAX does not provide an over-the-air signal to 63 of those
Cable Communities (each such Community with a yellow slash). Nevertheless, CHC believes
that Comcast carries the WCAX signal in those Cable Communities, and thus Comcast
apparently finds lack of over-the-air signal coverage to be irrelevant in this market.
In any case, the second Section 614 criterion refers to “coverage or other local service to
such community.” (Emphasis added). Accordingly, a “station’s broadcast of local programming,
which has a distinct nexus to the cable communities, is also evidence of local service.”15 In the
present case, WYCI carries a substantial amount of programming every weekday oriented
toward smaller communities in New Hampshire and Vermont including the Comcast Cable
Communities, such as reports on regional business activities, local public affairs and community
14 See, July 6, 2016 Letter from Dan Carbonara to Comcast, attached hereto as Exhibit 4. The Commission has previously found that the fact that a station can only deliver its signal to a cable headend with specialized equipment is not a barrier to the station being considered as in the same market as the communities served by that headend. See Erie County Cablevision, Inc., supra note 12, at footnote 32. In addition, the Commission has previously recognized that a lack of adequate station signal over the communities at issue has less significance in determining markets for modification than it does in a must- carry complaint. See, Time Warner Cable -- Avenal, California, 11 FCC Rcd 8047 (CSB, 1996) at para. 16.
15 See, e.g., In the Matter of Station WVXF, 24 FCC Rcd 8264 (MB, 2009) at para. 12. See also, In re Pulitzer Broadcasting Co. Omaha, Nebraska, 10 FCC Rcd. 3475 (CSB, 1995) at para. 17.
{00963818-1 }7
events, local news, and sports featuring local teams of particular interest to New Hampshire and
Vermont audiences. This programming is actually produced by WYCI at its studio in
Claremont, New Hampshire, which underscores its particular interest to viewers in New
Hampshire and Vermont and which enhances consumer access to in-state produced programming.
The core of the Station’s local programming is its YCN News program. This locally
produced 30 minute program broadcasts five days per week at 6:30 a.m. YCN News reports on local news, weather, politics, crime, accidents, arts and cultural events, and high school sports to a degree that major affiliate stations located in Burlington cannot. Scripts from all of the
Station’s broadcasts of YCN News from the second quarter of 2016 are provided in Exhibit 6 hereto. Exhibit 7 shows the number of times that the Cable Communities were referenced in these news reports during the second quarter of 2016 – 1,170 total references, regarding 19 of the
Cable Communities.
The Station also broadcasts its locally produced program The River Valley Chronicle on
Tuesdays, Thursdays and Sundays at 6:00 a.m., as well as on Sundays at 6:00 p.m., Tuesdays at
11:30 p.m., and Fridays at 11:30 p.m. This program addresses community and public affairs in
the Connecticut River Valley. All of the guests on the show are from non-profits and businesses
in Windsor County, Vermont; and Sullivan and Grafton Counties, New Hampshire, which are all
in the Burlington-Plattsburgh DMA. Guests on the show often discuss new business initiatives,
along with policy and economic trends in the area. The show takes an inside look at local
community affairs, arts and health, and the people who donate their time to such events and
issues. A listing of the guests from all of these shows from the second quarter of 2016 (March
28th through June 26th) is attached hereto as Exhibit 8.
{00963818-1 }8
The Station broadcasts its locally produced program Game of the Week, with the weekly
premiere on Thursdays at 7:00 a.m., with repeat broadcasts the same week on Monday, Tuesday,
Wednesday, Friday and Sunday at 7:00 a.m., as well as at 10:30 p.m. on Wednesdays, Thursdays
at 12 noon, and on Sundays at 10 a.m. This two hour program provides telecasts of boys and
girls’ basketball games, and football games, involving high schools primarily from the Cable
Communities. A listing of the games broadcast during the first and second quarters of 2016 is
attached hereto as Exhibit 9.16
The Station broadcasts its locally produced program Capital Connections on Sundays at
6:30 a.m. and 9:30 a.m. This one hour program addresses political and business issues of
interest to citizens in the Cable Communities. A listing of the guests from all of these shows from the first and second quarters of 2016 is attached hereto as Exhibit 10.
As discussed above, CHC and YCN will continue to expand the Station’s local programming.17 The Station will premiere its locally produced Adirondack Chronicle on
January 1, 2017. CHC also is working with Lyndon State College, (in Lyndon, Vermont) to
begin carrying their award-winning News 7 daily news show.18
16 The games listed in Exhibit 9 involve schools from the Cable Communities, with the exception of Kearsarge, Conant, Manchester and Somersworth. While the Game of the Week in the first and second quarters of 2016 were basketball games, the games in the third quarter will be football.
17 The fact that some Comcast systems carry the signals of CHC’s low power Station WYCU-LD and Class A Station WYCX-CD, which include some of the same programming carried by WYCI, does not negatively impact the case that WYCI’s cable market should include the Cable Communities. Indeed, the fact that Comcast carries these two stations as must-carry low power TV stations constitutes recognition by Comcast that their YCN informational programming is not duplicated by Burlington stations – a characteristic that CHC had to demonstrate to achieve must-carry status for WYCU-LD. See Section 614(h)(2)(B) of the Communications Act. Moreover, WYCX-CD and WYCU-LD are carried in only a few of the Cable Communities.
18 YCN is also negotiating with the University of Vermont to begin telecasting some of its sports events on the Station, including its soccer and hockey games. While CHC recognizes that the Commission cannot base its decision in this proceeding on proposals for the future, pursuant to Section 76.6(a)(6) of the Commission’s rules CHC will make filings in the future as additional local programming is added to
{00963818-1 }9
In sum, while the Station’s noise-limited signal contour does not cover the Cable
Communities, the same circumstance applies to other stations Comcast carries in the Cable
Communities; and WYCI produces and broadcasts significant amounts of locally produced and
oriented programming addressing the needs and interests of viewers in the Cable Communities –
more than can likely be found on other stations that focus on central urban markets.19
Accordingly, this criterion should be credited to the Station.
IV. Mandating Carriage of the Station Would Promote Access to In-State Programming.
The third statutory market modification factor considers whether modification of the
market would promote consumer access to in-state broadcast stations. Although Station WYCI
is not licensed to a community in the state of Vermont or New Hampshire, that should not be the
end of the consideration of this factor in this proceeding. The Commission’s recent STELAR
Report and Order notes that Congress’ recent addition of this factor to the statute is “intended to
promote access to in-state programming….”20 While WYCI is not licensed to the states of
Vermont or New Hampshire, it is certainly broadcasting relevant in-state programming to
viewers in those states. Indeed, the analysis of the relevance of the Station’s local programming
to viewers under this third factor should be made in the same manner as the analysis under the second statutory factor:
We note that our analysis of the in-state nature of the programming would be similar to our analysis of the local nature of the programming under the second statutory factor and would consider whether the television station provides programming specifically related to the subscribers’ state of residence. For example, under factor two, we consider whether the station has aired
the Station’s broadcasts in order to maintain the accuracy of the information pending before the Commission in this proceeding.
19 See further discussion at Section V infra. 20 In the Matter of Implementation of Section 102 of the STELA Reauthorization Act of 2014, Report and Order, 30 FCC Rcd 10406 (2015)(“STELAR Order”) at para. 19. (emphasis added)
{00963818-1 }10
programming, such as news, politics, sports, weather and other emergency information, specifically targeted to the community at issue (e.g., town council meeting, news or weather event that occurred in the community, local emergencies, etc.). Under factor three, we would consider whether the station has aired programming, such as news, politics, sports, emergency information, specifically related to the state in which the community is located (e.g., coverage of state politics and legislative matters, state sports team coverage, state emergency information, etc.).21
The Station’s local programming is reported from both Vermont and New Hampshire, and it is produced in the Station’s studio in Claremont, New Hampshire. These programs are, depending on the individual program, specifically related to the states of Vermont and New Hampshire
(e.g., “coverage of state politics and legislative matters, state sports team coverage, state emergency information, etc.”). Just as the extensive and growing broadcast of programming of local interest to viewers in New Hampshire and Vermont leads to crediting the second statutory factor to the Station, the Station should receive credit under the third factor as well.
V. “Local” Programming on Other Stations Carried by Comcast
The Petition states (at page 9) that Comcast carries the signal of Burlington and
Plattsburgh stations which broadcast news that the Petition asserts is “truly local” compared to the programming of Station WYCI. The Petition relies on program schedules of those stations, as set forth in Petition Exhibit 16. While those program schedules show that the Burlington and
Plattsburgh stations have regularly scheduled morning and evening newscasts, there is no evidence that those newscasts regularly include coverage of “truly local” matters specifically involving the Cable Communities, or of any particular content whatsoever.
The fact that Comcast carries full power stations licensed to Burlington and Plattsburgh
does not mean that WYCI’s local programming is redundant. On the contrary, it is well-known
that city stations typically focus their programming on the central city and only occasionally
21 Id. at note 85.
{00963818-1 }11
cover news and other events in outlying rural and small towns such as the Cable Communities.
In contrast, the WYCI programming documented herein emphasizes what the larger city stations do not cover.
Accordingly, based on the evidence presented, this factor cannot be credited to Comcast.
More broadly, the Commission has often stated that this factor is designed to enhance station petitions to add communities,22 which is not the context in the present case.
VI. Viewership of the Station in the Cable Communities
The Petition notes (at page 9) that the Station does not have reported viewership in the
Cable Communities. CHC does not contest this fact. However, there are two obvious reasons
for the lack of reported ratings, and together they undercut the goal of the Petition, as well as the
public policy goals of must-carry.
First, the lack of over-the-air ratings is in part a result of the fact that the Station does not
put an over-the-air signal over the Cable Communities. This leads directly to the second factor
driving the lack of ratings: the lack of current cable carriage by Comcast. Comcast cannot fairly
base a petition for deletion on the lack of Station viewership ratings, when its own refusal to
carry the Station is a primary reason for the lack of those ratings. 23
22 See e.g., Great Trails Broadcasting Corp., 10 FCC Rcd 8629, 8633, ¶ 23 (CSB, 1995); Paxson San Jose License, Inc., 12 FCC Rcd 17520, 17526, ¶ 13 (CSB, 1997).
23 The Commission has on many occasions recognized that the lack of cable carriage of a station is a valid explanation for the station lacking measurable ratings, and concluded that as a result, ratings data should not define that station’s cable market. See, e.g., Time Warner – Avenal, supra note 14, at para. 13. See also, Comcast of Central New Jersey, supra note 13, at para. 20 (lack of ratings data “must be considered in light of the existing lack of carriage and the heavily cabled nature (82 percent) of Mercer County.”). While CHC does not have access to the penetration rates in each of the Cable Communities for cable and alternate delivery services (“ADS” -- satellite and telephone company multichannel video services), market-wide the total cable and ADS penetration rate is 88 percent, according to the Television Bureau of Advertising, Inc. See, https://www.tvb.org/Public/MarketsStations/Markets/MarketProfile.aspx?@IP_IDENTITY_MCID=0000 022715 (last visited September 3, 2016).
{00963818-1 }12
While the Station may not have reported ratings in the Cable Community, there are other
viewership-based indicia that the Station’s market includes the Cable Communities. Attached as
Exhibit 11 is a list of the current and recent advertisers on WYCI in the Burlington-Plattsburgh
DMA. The vast majority (specifically, 68) of those advertisers are located in one of the Cable
Communities. 16 of the Cable Communities are represented.24 The presence of these advertisers from the Cable Communities shows the economic nexus between the Station and the
Cable Communities.25
In sum, this last statutory factor should not be credited to Comcast. Comcast’s lack of
current carriage of the Station is a primary factor in the lack of reported viewership, and as a
result, viewership ratings data alone should not define the Station’s cable market.
VII. Conclusion
Comcast’s Petition fails to make a prima facie case for modification of the Station’s cable
market to exclude the Cable Communities. This case is far different from past cases that have
modified the markets of fringe stations in large DMAs that had no realistic nexus to cable
communities. An analysis of this case based on the statutory factors strongly favors the Station.
The Station has a documented history of cable carriage in many of the Cable Communities, as
well as on other nearby Comcast systems, and may in fact have historical carriage in some or all
of the remaining Cable Communities. While the Station’s noise-limited contour does not cover
the Cable Communities, the Station’s substantial programming provides the required local
24 Those Cable Communities are in New Hampshire (Claremont, Hanover, Lebanon [and West Lebanon], Lyme, Newport, Plainfield, and Sunapee) and Vermont (Bethel, Chester, Hartland, Killington, Ludlow, North Pomfret, Norwich, Rutland, and Taftsville). As CHC has just recently taken ownership of the Station, it expects the number of advertisers in the Cable Communities to grow.
25 See, e.g., In the Matter of Station WVXF, Charlotte Amalie, Virgin Islands, 24 FCC Rcd. 8264 (MB, 2009) at paras. 14-15 (advertising revenue Charlotte station derives from Puerto Rico-based advertisers demonstrates its reach in Puerto Rican communities). In that case, the Commission also used the evidence of advertisers in part to credit the Station for “other local service.” Id. at para. 12.
{00963818-1 }13
service. Even though the Station is licensed to Saranac Lake, New York, because it broadcasts
significant amounts of programming originated in, produced in and regarding the Cable
Communities in New Hampshire and Vermont, mandating carriage of the Station would promote
access to in-state programming. The Petition’s assertion that other stations carried by Comcast provide local programming lacks any specific evidence that such programming specifically
addresses the Cable Communities. Lastly, while the Station lacks reported ratings in the Cable
Communities, because Comcast’s current refusal to carry Station is a primary reason for the lack
of ratings, that factor cannot properly be used to define the Station’s cable market.
In sum, WYCI is an integral part of the Burlington-Plattsburgh DMA, including the
Cable Communities.
The Petition appears to be little more than an attempt to stifle the development of a television station that is vulnerable because it is under new ownership, yet carries substantial amounts of local programming of interest to viewers in the Cable Communities, and thus is a potential competitor to Comcast.26 The Commission should not allow its processes to be used
for this purpose.
26 See https://www.comcastspotlight.com/markets/burlington.
{00963818-1 }14