[opendtv] Re: News: FCC's Martin Floats Leased Multicast Must-Carry Proposal
- From: Craig Birkmaier <craig@xxxxxxxxx>
- To: opendtv@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Tue, 27 Feb 2007 09:16:29 -0500
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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