Federal Communications Commission Record 11 FCC Red No
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DA 96-185 Federal Communications Commission Record 11 FCC Red No. 5 BACKGROUND 2. Pursuant to §614 of the Communications Act and Before the implementing rules adopted by the Commission in its Re Federal Communications Commission port and Order in MM Docket 92-259,5 commercial televi Washington, D.C. 20554 sion broadcast stations are entitled to assert mandatory carriage rights on cable systems located within the station's market. A station's market for this purpose is its "area of In re: dominant influence" or ADI as defined by the Arbitron audience research organization.6 An ADI is a geographic WNNE-TV, Inc. CSR-4001-A market designation that defines each television market ex Hartford, Vermont CSR-4002-A clusive of others, based on measured viewing patterns. CSR-4004-A Essentially, each county in the United States is allocated to a market based on which home-market stations receive a preponderance of total viewing hours in the county. For For Modification of Station purposes of this calculation, both over-the-air and cable WNNE-TV's ADI television viewing are included.7 3. Under the Act, however, the Commission is also di rected to consider changes in ADI areas. Section MEMORANDUM OPINION AND ORDER 61,4(h)(l)(C) provides that the Commission may: Adopted: February 13, 1996; Released: February 2l, 1996 with respect to a particular television broadcast sta By the Cable Services Bureau: tion, include additional communities within its tele vision market or exclude communities from such station's television market to better effectuate the INTRODUCTION purposes of this section. 1. WNNE-TV, Inc. ("WNNE-TV"), licensee of commer cial television station WNNE-TV (NBC, Channel 31), Hart In considering such r~quests, the Act provides that: ford, Vermont, filed the captioned petitions seeking to include communities in Sullivan County, New the Commission shall afford particular attention to Hampshire;1 Cheshire County, New Hampshire;2 and the value of localism by taking into account such Windham County, Vermont3 (collectively known as "the factors as -- Communities") within the Burlington, Vermont (I) whether the station, or other stations located in Plattsburgh, New York "area of dominant influence" (ADI) the same area, have been historically carried on the for the limited purpose of the cable television mandatory cable system or systems within such community; broadcast signal carriage rules. On September 8, 1993, Group W Television, Inc. ("Group W"), licensee of Station (II) whether the television station provides coverage WBZ-TV ' (NBC, Channel 4), Boston, Massachusetts or other local service to such community; ("WBZ-TV") filed an opposition to the petitions for special (III) whether any other television station that is eli 4 relief. On October 7, 1993, WNNE-TV filed a reply to the gible to be carried by a cable system in such commu Group W Opposition. nity in fulfillment of the requirements of this section provides news coverage of. issues of concern to such community or provides carriage or coverage of sport ing and other events of interest to the community; and 1 These communities are Charlestown, Claremont, Cornish. Newfane, Stratton, Stratton Mountain. Stratton Ski, Stratton Cornish (town), George Mills, Grantham, Guild, Langdon. West, West Dover, Whitingham, Williamsville, Wilmington. and Meriden, Newport, Plainfield, South Charlestown, Springfield, surrounding areas in Windham County. Sunapee, Wendell, and surrounding areas in Sullivan County. 4 On September 23, 1993, WNNE-TV filed a Consent Motion 2 These communities are Alstead, Alstead Center, Ashuelot, for an Extension to file a reply. Chesterfield, Drewsville, East Alstead, East Swanzey, 5 8 FCC Red 2965, 2976-2977 (1993). Fitzwilliam, Gilsum, Harrisville, Hinsdale, Jaffrey, Keene, 6 Section 76.55(e) of the Commission's Rules provides that the Keene Ramada-5636, Marlborough, Marlow, Nelson, North ADls to be used for purposes of the initial implementation of Swanzey, North Walpole, Richmond, Rindge, Rindge-Franklin the mandatory carriage rules are those published in Arbitron's Pierce College, Roxbury, Spofford, Surry, Swanzey, Troy, Wal 19<Jl-1992 Television Market Guide. pole, West Chesterfield, Westmoreland, West Swanzey, 7 Because of the topography involved, certain counties are Winchester, and surrounding areas in Cheshire County. divided into more than one sampling unit, Also, in certain 3 These communities are Athens. Bellows Falls, Brattleboro, circumstances, a station may have its home county assigned to Cambridgeport, East Dummerston, Grafton, Jacksonville, Lon an ADI even though it receives less than a preponderance of the donderry, Newfane, Newfane Hill, North Westminster, Saxtons audience in that county. For a more complete description of River, Putney, Rockingham. South Londonderry, South how counties are allocated, see Arbitron's Description of Meth odology.· 2384 11 FCC Red No. 5 Federal Communications Commission Record DA 96-185 (IV) evidence of viewing patterns in cable and 6. In adopting rules. to implement this prov1s1on, the noncable households within the areas served by the Commission indicated that changes requested should be cable system or systems in such community.8 considered on a community-by-community basis rather than on a county-by-county basis and that they should be 4. The legislative history of this provision indicates that: treated as specific to particular stations rather than ap 11 plicable in common to all stations in the market. The rules further provide, in accordance with the requirements where the presumption in favor of ADI carriage of the Act, that a station not be deleted from carriage would result in cable subscribers losing access to during the pendency of an market area change request.12 local stations because they are outside the ADI in which a local cable system operates, the FCC may 7. Adding communities to a station's market area gen make an adjustment to include or exclude particular erally entitles that station to insist on cable carriage in communities from a television station's market con those communities. However, this right is subject to several sistent with Congress' objective to ensure that televi conditions: 1) a cable system operator is generally required sion stations be carried in the areas which they serve to devote no more than one-third of its activated channel and which form their economic market. capacity to compliance with the mandatory signal carriage obligations, 2) the station is responsible for delivering a good quality signal to the principal headend of the system, 3) indemnification may be required for any increase in * * * * * * copyright liability resulting from carriage, and 4) the sys tem operator is not required to carry the signal of any [This subsection] establishes certain criteria which the station whose signal substantially duplicates the signal of Commission shall consider in acting on requests to any other local signal carried or the signals of more than modify the geographic area in which stations have one local station affiliated with a particular broadcast net signal carriage rights. These factors are not intended work. If, pursuant to these requirements, a system operator to be exclusive, but may be used to demonstrate that elects to carry the signal of only a single affiliate of a 9 a community is part of a particular station's market. broadcast network, it is obliged to carry the affiliate _from within the market whose city of license is closest to the 5. The Commission provided guidance in its Report and principal headend of the cable system.° Accordingly, based Order in MM Docket 92-259, supra, to aid decision making on the specific circumstances involved, the addition of in these matters, as follows: communities to a station's market area may guarantee it cable carriage and specific channel position rights; simply For example, the historical carriage of the station provide the system operator with an expanded list of must could be illustrated by the submission of documents carry signals from which to choose, i.e., when it has used listing the cable system's channel line-up (e.g., rate up its channel capacity mandated for broadcast signals cards) for a period of years. To show that the station carriage, or determined which of duplicating network affili provides coverage or other local service to the cable. ated stations are entitled to carriage priority. community (factor 2), parties may demonstrate that the station places at least a Grade.B coverage contour over the cable community or is located close to the MARKET FACTS AND ARGUMENTS OF THE PARTIES community in terms of mileage. Coverage of news or 8. Windham County, Vermont and Sullivan County, other programming of interest to the community New Hampshire are contiguous to Windsor County, . could be demonstrated by program logs or other WNNE-TV's home county. To the south of Sullivan Coun descriptions of local program offerings. The final fac ty and across the border from Windham County is Chesh tor concerns viewing patterns in the cable commu ire County, New Hampshire. The borders of Cheshire and nity in cable and noncable homes. Audience data Windsor Counties are five miles apart: WNNE-TV's main clearly provide appropriate evidence about this fac transmitter in Windsor, Vermont is adjacent to Sullivan tor. In this regard, we note that surveys such as those County, is 15 miles from Windham County, and is ap used to demonstrate significantly viewed status could proximately 20 miles from Cheshire County. Boston is be useful. However, since this factor requires us to approximately 72 miles from Keene, Cheshire County's evaluate viewing on a community basis for cable and largest community; 80 miles from Brattleboro, Windham noncable homes, and significantly viewed surveys County's largest community; and 90 miles from Claremont, typically measure viewing only in noncable house Sullivan County's largest community. holds, such surveys may need to be supplemented 9.