When does Must Carry mean Must carry

[NEBUGEATER]

I live in the Omaha NE locals DMA and we have had locals for six months or so now. We have the Local ABC, CBS, NBC, PBS Nebr and PBS Iowa stations in our local package. There is also a Local FOX and a Local WB over the air affiliate here that are in the DMA. We are paying the reduced $4.99 rate for the local package but my questions is when does DISH have to carry all of the locals to comply with the must carry laws? I have posed this question to dish on a couple of different occasions via phone and email and all I get is boilerplate answers.

My personal desire for an answer is the approach of college FB season (The WB station carries a bunch of the syndicated games) and the Fox NFL season. Both of these stations are hard to get over the air where I leave and the local package is the perfect solution for me. What are there requirements to hammer out a deal to provide all locals or loose the whole package? Any ideas on this?
?

[dbronstein]

My understanding is that Dish has to carry local stations that request it, and the stations receive no compensation from Dish. A station can ask for compensation for Dish to carry them, in which case Dish does not have to carry them until they reach an agreement. The problem is your FOX and WB stations are asking for more money than Dish is willing to pay them. So contact your local stations and ask them why they can't reach an agreement with Dish.

Dennis

[TNGTony]

The actual culprit is Pappas broadcasting. They own the two stations that E* still doesn't have up.

As to the must carry thing, from the EKB http://ekb.dbstalk.com/19#MC

What Does "Must Carry" Mean?

The FCC implemented a rule as directed by Congress essentially saying that if a DBS Carrier (Dish or DirecTV) carry one channel in a certain city (Designated Marketing Area or DMA), they must carry all the stations in that city. But there are lots of rules that apply to the stations as well. So not all the channels in a DMA qualify for Must Carry status.

In order for a station to qualify for must carry the following conditions must be met:

The station has to ASK for must carry status within the designated election period as established by the FCC. In Boston, the Telemundo station wanted Must Carry, but they asked Dish for it 6 months too late. This station doesn't have to be carried.
The station MUST be an FCC licensed full-power station to the DMA in question. Licensed low power channels and Class A Stations DO NOT qualify for must carry status. Stations licensed to foreign countries (Canada - "c" stations and Mexico "x" stations) DO NOT qualify for must carry status.
The station may NOT ask for any consideration or compensation in return for allowing the satellite company to carry the channel. If a station asks for ANYTHING it waves its right for must carry status until the next election period (usually 3 years)
The station may NOT be a repeater or substantially duplicate another channel's programming within the same DMA unless they are in different states. This means that if there are two channels in the same DMA that mostly show the same programming at the same time and are both in the same state, ONLY ONE has to be carried under the must carry rules. But if the two stations are in two different states, BOTH have to be carried under the rules if they ask.
The station MUST provide a "good quality" signal to the satellite company's local point of presence (POP). "Good Quality" is subjective and the FCC has been involved in a few disputes, but if a station's over the air signal is not satisfactory, the TV station must provide their signal via fiber or other conveyance at THEIR expense.
Non-commercial/Educational stations (PBS and EDU) have different but similar rules
Any stations that do not qualify for, or waive must carry status or elect retransmission consent COULD be carried by retransmission consent between the station and the DBS Carrier, but the stations that do not qualify for must carry cannot force the DBS company to carry the station.



See ya
Tony

[scooper]

Tony - is that a quote from somewhere ? - it certainly looks "Official government-ese" to me...

In any event - it says the story quite well.

[TNGTony]

Scooper,

No...I wrote it synopsizing the 4 pages in the SHVIA addressing this.

Thanks.

See ya
Tony

[Greg Bimson]

The station has to ASK for must carry status within the designated election period as established by the FCC. In Boston, the Telemundo station wanted Must Carry, but they asked Dish for it 6 months too late. This station doesn't have to be carried.Are you sure about this?

NBC just received FCC relief, which orders carriage of the Telemundo statio WNEU in the Boston DMA on Dish Network.

[TNGTony]

Absolutely

The Telemundo affiliate at the time was not WNEU Merrimack/Manchester, NH. It was WWDP 46 on Norwell. Value Vision bought the station from an independent owner: http://directmag.com/ar/marketing_valuevision_acquires_boston/index.htm

A little station history according to www.100kwatts.com: Pax WBPX changed to infomercials WWDP in 6/1999. WWDP changed from infomercials to Telemundo 9/17/2000. WWDP changed to home shopping 7/2002.

In December 2001, I received an e-mail from the GM and (presumably) owner of the TV station. He'd just run accoss http://ekb.dbstalk.com/19 (at the time it was a little different) and he asked ME why E* hadn't contacted him about the must carry. When I informed him that HE had to contact Dish and file a must carry claim, he responded that he didn't realize this and would file imediately. Later, he told me that he had been denied for filing late and would need to strike up a retrans consent deal. Unfortunately E* wanted HIM to pay THEM to carry the channel. Dead issue for 4 years. :-)

Now the NBC/Telemundo WNEU thing is another story completely. Again a breif history complements of www.100kwatts.com: WPXB changed from Pax to infomercials in 6/1999. WPXB changed from infomercials to ValueVision home shopping 11/1/2000, then to Shop NBC in 2001. WPXB changed calls to WNEU 11/2002. Shopping WNEU changed to Telemundo 4/2003.

This station asked for must carry originally, but it never had the signal strength to reach Dish. Dish was not obligated to carry the station until 75 days of reciving "good singal". Fast forwadt a couple of years, now Dish claims that the must carry period is over. The FCC said no, the station is NOW able to provide signal and since they originally applied for must carry, Dish is stuck.

See ya
Tony

[NEBUGEATER]

Thanks for the info.

[scottchez]

See my other Post.

The problem is Pappas is mad at Dish for putting there West Coast Spanish channels up on 148 Degree and not on the main Sat.

All the other cities that Pappas covers (about 15%) loose becuase of this.

They are still in talks so call your local Pappas station and Dish and ask them to work something out.

[Mark Holtz]

So, what happens when a station goes from LP to full power status? Can they then say "must carry"?

[Neil Griffin]

So, what happens when a station goes from LP to full power status? Can they then say "must carry"?

It would be considered a new station, so they get the option of must carry or retransmission consent. I think there is a 60 day window, but I might be wrong on the time period.

[scottchez]

I thought the Must carried happen every Year or so.

Meaning they could only apply durring this time frame so the DBS guys can plan for the space.

[TNGTony]

The Must Carry election period for TV stations happens once every 3 years (4 years the first time around just so it can "catch up" to cable's cycle). But if a new station goes on the air, they have a short window to elect "Must Carry". This way they aren't left out in the cold to go out of business with unfair competition.

See ya
Tony

[toad57]

We are paying the reduced $4.99 rate for the local package but my questions is when does DISH have to carry all of the locals to comply with the must carry laws?

Easy answer: It depends on what your definition of 'is' is.
:slowgrin:

[TNGTony]

Actually, the answer to the question is, "right away".

The problem is that all the stations have to ASK and AGREE to be carried. Some stations eighter never asked or didn't agree. So Dish is in complience with the law.

See ya
Tony