MB 20-73 Significantly Viewed Stations Final
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Before the FEDERAL COMMUNICATIONS COMMISSION Washington, DC 20554 In the Matter of ) ) MB Docket 20-73 Significantly Viewed Stations ) COMMENTS OF RAYMIE HUMBERT Raymie Humbert (“Humbert”) hereby respectfully submits these comments in the context of the above-captioned Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (“NPRM”) on modernizing the Federal Communications Commission (“Commission”)’s rules on significantly viewed (“SV”) stations. The purpose of these comments is to point out the dire need for an update to those portions of the existing list that include Canadian and Mexican television stations. The NPRM adopted by the Commission focuses on other necessary updates to the methodology and list involved in significantly viewed stations, which were adopted based on viewership surveys from the 1970–71 television season. It points out that an independent station was deemed to be significantly viewed at that time if it exceeded a two percent share of viewing hours based on over-the-air viewership and a net weekly circulation of five percent. (In the following discussion, every station is an independent from the point of view of the United States.) However, this is also an opportunity to update the single most outdated aspect of the list. It Was the Early ’70s Much as could be said of the United States, the television industry in Canada and Mexico is a very different place now than it was in 1972, when the original list was published. Aside from one or two changes in call letters, and even then not completely, the information contained for Canadian and Mexican stations in the list is from another era altogether. Of the 23 Canadian stations approved for significantly viewed status, three have changed call letters (CHSJ, now 1 CBAT; CJOC, now CISA; and CKTV, which only branded as such and was always CKCK-TV) and another three have ceased operations altogether (CJIC, CKOS and CKX, all former private CBC stations, closed in the 2000s). On the Mexican side, XEFB is listed on channel 3, a dial position it has not occupied since the mid-1980s; in fact, all four of the Mexican stations in the list now use other virtual channels as the result of a 2016 national reallocation. (These are included in the table below.) There were far fewer stations in pretty much every city. Canada has since gained two national television networks (the Global Television Network began operations in 1974, shortly after the list was created), while Mexico’s television landscape turned into a commercial monopoly, then a duopoly, then a not-so-duopoly. Needless to say, much has changed. The list is ripe for substantial revisions with regard to its incorporation of foreign television stations. My analysis of cable channel listings in the counties that had Canadian and Mexican stations listed for significant viewing suggests that cable coverage of Canadian private commercial stations, which in the original list was primarily those affiliated with CTV, has diminished significantly in some areas. It also suggests that the Mexico-side list could be substantially expanded, taking cues from what cable systems are actually carrying in towns in those counties. Mexico: Many More Stations The original SV list included just four stations in Mexico, assigned to one county each: Call Letters Old Ch # New Ch # Location County XEFB 3 4 Monterrey, N.L. Zapata, TX XEFE 2 17 Nuevo Laredo, Tamps. Webb, TX XHBC 3 4 Mexicali, B.C. Imperial, CA XHFA 2 7 Nogales, Son. Santa Cruz, AZ 2 Of the four stations listed, one is now exclusively a transmitter of a national network. That station is XHFA, which is part of the Azteca 7 network owned by TV Azteca. The others are independent stations in that they do not carry a national network. With the exception of XEFB in Zapata, TX, each of these stations (or, in the case of XHFA, an apparently mislabeled transmitter of the same network) remain on the major cable systems in Laredo, El Centro, and Nogales, AZ, respectively. However, cable systems in border cities are carrying substantially more Mexican stations, from San Diego to the Rio Grande Valley: • In San Diego, XEWT 12 has been carried on cable for decades. Also available are two stations in which Entravision Communications, an American broadcasting group, owns a 40 percent stake: XHDTV (cable 13) and XHAS (cable 15). These stations have typically been programmed from the United States. • In El Centro, CA, Spectrum carries not just XHBC but XHILA, a local independent, on channel 14, and XHBM, a Las Estrellas network station, on channel 18. XHILA is the youngest foreign TV station carried on any of the cable systems analyzed, as it took to the air in 1998. • Mediacom in Nogales, AZ, offers local station XHNSS, Las Estrellas network station XHNOS, and one or both of the TV Azteca networks (the lineup is badly mislabeled). • In El Paso, coverage is limited to XEPM (Las Estrellas) and XHJCI (a local independent). I am personally surprised that XHIJ, another major local independent and one of the most-watched stations in Ciudad Juárez, is not included; it was previously on this system. • Spectrum in Del Rio, Texas, carries Las Estrellas (local transmitter XHAMC). 3 • The Spectrum system in Eagle Pass, Texas, in Maverick County, is a standout in carrying four Mexican TV stations: XHPN (a Gala TV network station with some local programming) and three repeaters of national networks (XHPNH, XHPNT and XHPNG). It does not carry local independent XHPNW, however. XHPN did not exist until June 13, 1980, according to records of the Federal Telecommunications Institute (IFT), though other sources indicate it was on the air slightly earlier. • In Laredo, four Mexicans are carried, and only one is a national network transmitter: XHLNA (Azteca Uno), alongside XHBR, XHNAT (Multimedios Televisión) and listed XEFE. • In Zapata, on the fringe of Laredo and Nuevo Laredo signal contours, Spectrum carries the same lineup as in Laredo: XHBR, XHNAT, XHLNA and XEFE. Notably, it does not carry XEFB of Monterrey, which is the only Mexican station on the SV list. • The Spectrum system for the Rio Grande Valley, from McAllen to Brownsville, includes four stations: local independent XHAB and network stations XHOR, XHREY and XERV. As the list demonstrates, carriage of Mexican television stations has increased on cable systems in these areas, mirroring the increase in television transmitters as a whole. The Mexican portion of the significantly viewed list, even just including stations with local content, would more than double to 10. Unlike with English-language stations in Canada (seen below), much of the programming is not immediately duplicated on stations in the United States. As to why XEFB is not on cable in Zapata, I offer this likely explanation. Its programming is not very relevant as a local station for Monterrey, Nuevo León, and the station has a very sharp terrain null in the direction of Zapata because of the intervening Papagayos mountains northeast of Monterrey. XHBR is similar, as a Televisa-owned local station, and more 4 pertinent to Zapata viewers than XEFB. While Monterrey television stations did get wider coverage around the time the list was drafted—XET and XHAW were on cable in the Rio Grande Valley in the early 1970s—this soon faded. In Canada, Another Story The Canadian story can best be described this way: the CBC has hung on, but in a number of areas, Canadian television has a diminished presence—or no presence at all—in counties where there were once significantly viewed stations. This is particularly true of commercial stations affiliated with private networks, probably because they are so reliant on American prime time and syndicated programming. Canada’s public broadcaster has the widest coverage. In the 20 or so SV counties that still carried Canadian television stations on cable, only two did not have a CBC station: Cavalier County, North Dakota (which only carried CTV affiliate CKY from Winnipeg, Manitoba), and Jefferson County, New York, where viewers had a choice of Global from CKWS in Kingston, Ontario (a former CBC outlet) or CTV from CJOH in Ottawa. The retreat has been most prominent in Montana and North Dakota. Last year, Spectrum dropped CISA-DT Global Lethbridge from its system in Havre, Montana (Hill County)—a notable event, given that this station had been carried for decades in Montana on TV translators and cable systems. In 1990, when syndex rules became effective, CISA was subjected to blackout and then removed by TCI, the main cable system in Great Falls at the time, much to the chagrin of local residents.1 1 Ecke, Richard (1990, April 18). “Suggestions for cable TV abundant.” Great Falls Tribune. (page 1A, 10A) 5 Other stations listed as significantly viewed for counties in these states, such as CFCN in Calgary or CKCK in Regina, are simply nowhere to be found, or channel lineups for the relevant areas were not available. (CBWT Winnipeg does appear on several Minnesota systems.) It is upstate New York and Vermont where Canadian television has its largest reach. In four of the five counties with significantly-viewed Canadian stations, two of them were on a cable system. In three of the cases, a CBC affiliate—either CBMT Montreal or CBOT Ottawa— and one of CJOH Ottawa or CFCF Montreal for CTV were available, and in the fourth, CJOH and Global-affiliated CKWS were on the system. (CKWS was affiliated with the CBC from 1954 to 2015 and with CTV between 2015 and 2018.) Systems in the Burlington-Plattsburgh media market also added a French-language station, either Ici Radio-Canada Télé CBFT of Montreal or its semi-satellite CKSH in Sherbrooke, Quebec. (It’s worth noting that no French-language station appeared in the SV list.) In Michigan, CBC stations have largely remained available (particularly CBET of Windsor, which is carried market-wide in Detroit and has SV status in much of the metro).