18. Must-Carry

Must-Carry or Retransmission Consent Election.

There are two ways that a broadcast TV station can choose to be carried on a cable TV system: “must-carry” and “retransmission consent.”

Must-Carry. All TV stations are generally entitled to be carried on cable television systems in their local markets. A station that chooses to exercise this right receives no compensation from the cable system.

Retransmission. Instead of exercising their “must-carry” rights, commercial TV stations may choose to receive compensation from a cable system in return for granting permission to the cable system to carry the station. This option is available only to commercial TV stations.

Every three years, commercial TV stations must decide whether their relationship with each local cable system will be governed by must-carry or by retransmission consent agreements. Each commercial station must keep a copy of its decision in the public file for the three-year period to which it pertains.
Noncommercial stations are not entitled to compensation in return for carriage on a cable system, but they may request mandatory carriage on the system. A noncommercial station making this request must keep a copy of the request in the public file for the duration of the period to which it applies.

• Adelphia SoCal 09.14.2005
• Cablevision 09.19.2005
• Cablevision of Blythe 09.08.2005
• Catalina Cable TV 09.08.2005
• Charter Communications 09.09.2005
• Comcast Cable 09.09.2005
• Cox Cable 09.08.2005
• Direct TV 09.14.2005
• Direct TV2 09.14.2005
• Echostar 10.11.2005
• First Anual Toy Drive
• MFP 06.09.2005
• MFP 07.21.2005
• MFP 08.13.2005
• MFP 10.03.2005
• MFP 04.03.2006
• MFP 04.11.2006
• MFP 05.22.2006
• MFP 2007
• MFP 01.22.2007
• MFP 04.11.2007
• MFP 07.16.2007
• MFP 09.24.2007
• Mediacom 09.08.2005
• Request to Terminate
• Time Warner 09.08.2005