[opendtv] Re: News: FCC's Martin Floats Leased Multicast Must-Carry Proposal

At 7:29 PM -0500 2/26/07, Manfredi, Albert E wrote:

\But the "current FCC policy" clearly becomes obsolete on 18 Feb 2009.
When the analog channel disappears, by definition any must-carry rule
will be worded differently.



Obsolete?
The policy states that a licensee can obtain must carry or retransmission consent protection for one primary program delivered in the free and clear. Further, the licensee can elect this protection for their analog or digital signals during the simulcast transition period. The only thing that changes on February 18, 2009 is that the analog signals go away, so the protection automatically moves to the digital signal on that date, if the station has not already elected this option.
That being said, this is probably a moot issue. Analog retransmission consent negotiations re now being conducted to leverage carriage of the digital signals on a "voluntary" basis. With an agreement in place, stations are getting analog carriage in the basic tier, and digital carriage in the HDTV tier. The only issue is whether stations will allow degrading of their digital signals to fill the analog tier after 2/17/09.
What is relatively certain is that 85% of U.S. homes are not going to know that anything has happened on 2/18/09. although they may know that they are paying for Free TV. 

Regards
Craig


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