Cable Nets Lose Dual Carriage Case

A three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit ruled Friday that a group of cable networks that included C-SPAN couldn't challenge the Federal Communications Commission's decision to force cable operators to carry certain TV stations. Without addressing the merits of the rules, the court held that the FCC's regulations applied to cable operators but not to programmers. It said that cable networks failed to demonstrate that government-mandated TV station occupation of cable system capacity automatically created an injury to cable networks denied the same access guarantees.