Goto Section: 76.55 | 76.57 | Table of Contents
FCC 76.56
Revised as of October 1, 2011
Goto Year:2010 |
2012
§ 76.56 Signal carriage obligations.
(a) Carriage of qualified noncommercial educational stations. A cable
television system shall carry qualified NCE television stations in
accordance with the following provisions:
(1) Each cable operator shall carry on its cable television system any
qualified local NCE television station requesting carriage, except that
(i) Systems with 12 or fewer usable activated channels, as defined in
§ 76.6(oo), shall be required to carry the signal of one such station;
(ii) Systems with 13 to 36 usable activated channels, as defined in
§ 76.5(oo), shall be required to carry at least one qualified local NCE
station, but not more than three such stations; and
(iii) Systems with more than 36 usable activated channels shall be
required to carry the signals of all qualified local NCE television
stations requesting carriage, but in any event at least three such
signals; however a cable system with more than 36 channels shall not be
required to carry an additional qualified local NCE station whose
programming substantially duplicates the programming of another
qualified local NCE station being carried on the system.
Note: For purposes of this paragraph, a station will be deemed to
"substantially duplicate" the programming of another station if it
broadcasts the same programming, simultaneous or non-simultaneous, for
more than 50 percent of prime time, as defined in § 76.5(n), and more
than 50 percent outside of prime time over a three-month period.
(2)(i) In the case of a cable system with 12 or fewer channels that
operates beyond the presence of any qualified local NCE stations, the
cable operator shall import one qualified NCE television station.
(ii) A cable system with between 13 and 36 channels that operates
beyond the presence of any qualified local NCE stations, the cable
operator shall import at least one qualified NCE television station.
(3) A cable system with 12 or fewer usable activated channels shall not
be required to remove any programming service provided to subscribers
as of March 29, 1990, to satisfy these requirements, except that the
first available channel must be used to satisfy these requirements.
(4) A cable system with 13 to 36 usable activated channels which
carries the signal of a qualified local NCE station affiliated with a
State public television network shall not be required to carry more
than one qualified local NCE station affiliated with such network, if
the programming of such additional stations substantially duplicates,
as defined in the note in paragraph (a)(1) of this section, the
programming of a qualified local NCE television station receiving
carriage.
(5) Notwithstanding the requirements of paragraph (a)(1) of this
section, all cable operators shall continue to provide carriage to all
qualified local NCE television stations whose signals were carried on
their systems as of March 29, 1990. In the case of a cable system that
is required to import a distance qualified NCE signal, and such system
imported the signal of a qualified NCE station as of March 29, 1990,
such cable system shall continue to import such signal until such time
as a qualified local NCE signal is available to the cable system. This
requirements may be waived with respect to a particular cable operator
and a particular NCE station, upon the written consent of the cable
operator and the station.
(b) Carriage of local commercial television stations. Effective June 2,
1993, a cable television system shall carry local commercial broadcast
television stations in accordance with the following provisions:
(1) A cable system with 12 or fewer usable activated channels, as
defined in § 76.5(oo), shall carry the signals of at least three
qualified local commercial television stations, except that if such
system serves 300 or fewer subscribers it shall not be subject to these
requirements as long as it does not delete from carriage the signal of
a broadcast television station which was carried on that system on
October 5, 1992.
(2) A cable system with more than 12 usable activated channels, as
defined in § 76.5(oo), shall carry local commercial television stations
up to one-third of the aggregate number of usable activated channels of
such system.
(3) If there are not enough local commercial television stations to
fill the channels set aside under paragraphs (b)(1) and (b)(2) of this
section, a cable operator of a system with 35 or fewer usable activated
channels, as defined in § 76.5(oo), shall, if such stations exist,
carry one qualified low power television station and a cable system
with more than 35 usable activated channels shall carry two qualified
low power stations.
(4) Whenever the number of local commercial television stations exceeds
the maximum number of signals a cable system is required to carry under
paragraph (b)(1) or (b)(2) of this section, the cable operator shall
have discretion in selecting which such stations shall be carried on
its cable system, except that
(i) Under no circumstances shall a cable operator carry a qualified low
power station in lieu of a local commercial television station; and
(ii) If the cable operator elects to carry an affiliate of a broadcast
network, as defined in § 76.55(f), such cable operator shall carry the
affiliate of such broadcast network whose community of license
reference point, as defined in § 76.53, is closest to the principal
headend, as defined in § 76.5(pp), of the cable system.
(5) A cable operator is not required to carry the signal of any local
commercial television station that substantially duplicates the signal
of another local commercial television station that is carried on its
cable system, or to carry the signals of more than one local commercial
television station affiliated with a particular broadcast network, as
defined in § 76.55(f). However, if a cable operator declines to carry
duplicating signals, such cable operator shall carry the station whose
community of license reference point, as defined in § 76.53, is closest
to the principal headend of the cable system. For purposes of this
paragraph, substantially duplicates means that a station regularly
simultaneously broadcasts the identical programming as another station
for more than 50 percent of the broadcast week. For purposes of this
definition, only identical episodes of a television series are
considered duplicative and commercial inserts are excluded from the
comparison. When the stations being compared are licensed to
communities in different time zones, programming aired by a station
within one hour of the identical program being broadcast by another
station will be considered duplicative.
(6) [Reserved]
(7) A local commercial television station carried to fulfill the
requirements of this paragraph, which subsequently elects
retransmission consent pursuant to § 76.64, shall continue to be
carried by the cable system until the effective date of such
retransmission consent election.
(c) Use of public, educational, or governmental (PEG) channels. A cable
operator required to carry more than one signal of a qualified low
power station or to add qualified local NCE stations in fulfillment of
these must-carry obligations may do so, subject to approval by the
franchising authority pursuant to Section 611 of the Communications Act
of 1934, as amended, by placing such additional station on public,
educational, or governmental channels not in use for their designated
purposes.
(d) Availability of signals. (1) Local commercial television stations
carried in fulfillment of the requirements of this section shall be
provided to every subscriber of a cable system. Such signals shall be
viewable via cable on all television receivers of a subscriber which
are connected to a cable system by a cable operator or for which a
cable operator provides a connection.
(2) Qualified local NCE television stations carried in fulfillment of
the carriage obligations of a cable operator under this section shall
be available to every subscriber as part of the cable system's lowest
priced service tier that includes the retransmission of local
commercial television broadcast signals.
(3) The viewability and availability requirements of this section
require that, after the broadcast television transition from analog to
digital service for full power television stations cable operators must
either:
(i) Carry the signals of commercial and non-commercial must-carry
stations in analog format to all analog cable subscribers, or
(ii) For all-digital systems, carry those signals in digital format,
provided that all subscribers, including those with analog television
sets, that are connected to a cable system by a cable operator or for
which the cable operator provides a connection have the necessary
equipment to view the broadcast content.
(4) Any costs incurred by a cable operator in downconverting or
carrying alternative-format versions of signals under § 76.56(d)(3)(i)
or (ii) shall be the responsibility of the cable operator.
(5) The requirements set forth in paragraph (d)(3) of this section
shall cease to be effective three years from the date on which all
full-power television stations cease broadcasting analog signals,
unless the Commission extends the requirements in a proceeding to be
conducted during the year preceding such date.
(e) Carriage of additional broadcast television signals on such system
shall be at the discretion of the cable operator, subject to the
retransmission consent rules, § 76.64. A cable system may also carry
any ancillary or other transmission contained in the broadcast
television signal.
(f) Calculation of broadcast signals carried. When calculating the
portion of a cable system devoted to carriage of local commercial
television stations under paragraph (b) of this section, a cable
operator may count the primary video and program-related signals of all
such stations, and any alternative-format versions of those signals,
that they carry.
Note 1 to § 76.56: Section 76.1620 provides notification requirements
for a cable operator who authorizes subscribers to install additional
receiver connections, but does not provide the subscriber with such
connections, or with the equipment and materials for such connections.
Note 2 to § 76.56: Section 76.1614 provides response requirements for a
cable operator who receives a written request to identify its
must-carry signals.
Note 3 to § 76.56: Section 76.1709 provides recordkeeping requirements
with regard to a cable operator's list of must-carry signals.
[ 58 FR 17360 , Apr. 2, 1993, as amended at 58 FR 39161 , July 22, 1993;
58 FR 40368 , July 28, 1993; 59 FR 62344 , Dec. 5, 1994; 65 FR 53614 ,
Sept. 5, 2000; 66 FR 16553 , Mar. 26, 2001; 73 FR 6054 , Feb. 1, 2008]
Goto Section: 76.55 | 76.57
Goto Year: 2010 |
2012
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