LPTV Must Carry

“Martin Had To Pull LPTV Must-Carry Plan
FCC Chief Fails To Obtain Enough Votes To Ensure Passage
By Ted Hearn — Multichannel News, 10/18/2008 12:17:00 AM MT
Washington—Short on votes, Federal Communications Commission chairman Kevin Martin last week dropped a plan designed to force cable operators to carry hundreds of low-power TV stations for the first time.

Martin wanted the agency to vote on the plan last Wednesday in Nashville, Tenn., but he decided against going forward last Tuesday afternoon after failing to obtain two votes in addition to his to ensure passage.

The FCC’s meeting was to include testimony from low-power television executives from around the country. Dozens of them needlessly traveled to Nashville, even though Martin knew as early as last Monday that his plan was doomed.”

Whats Left on the books;
Title 47: Telecommunication
PART 76—MULTICHANNEL VIDEO AND CABLE TELEVISION SERVICE
§ 76.55 Definitions applicable to the must-carry rules.

d) Qualified low power station. A qualified low power station is any television broadcast station conforming to the low power television rules contained in part 74 of this chapter, only if:

(1) Such station broadcasts for at least the minimum number of hours of operation required by the Commission for full power television broadcast stations under part 73 of this chapter;

(2) Such station meets all obligations and requirements applicable to full power television broadcast stations under part 73 of this chapter, with respect to the broadcast of nonentertainment programming; programming and rates involving political candidates, election issues, controversial issues of public importance, editorials, and personal attacks; programming for children; and equal employment opportunity; and the Commission determines that the provision of such programming by such station would address local news and informational needs which are not being adequately served by full power television broadcast stations because of the geographic distance of such full power stations from the low power station’s community of license;

(3) Such station complies with interference regulations consistent with its secondary status pursuant to part 74 of this chapter;

(4) Such station is located no more than 56.32 km (35 miles) from the cable system’s principal headend, as defined in §76.5(pp), and delivers to that headend an over-the-air signal of good quality;

(5) The community of license of such station and the franchise area of the cable system are both located outside of the largest 160 Metropolitan Statistical Areas, ranked by population, as determined by the Office of Management and Budget on June 30, 1990, and the population of such community of license on such date did not exceed 35,000; and

(6) There is no full power television broadcast station licensed to any community within the county or other equivalent political subdivision (of a State) served by the cable system.

Note to paragraph (d): For the purposes of this section, a good quality signal shall mean a signal level of either -45 dBm for UHF signals or -49 dBm for VHF signals at the input terminals of the signal processing equipment, or a baseband video signal.