FCC divided on must-carry for new digital channels

FCC DIVIDED ON MUST-CARRY FOR NEW DIGITAL CHANNELS
[SOURCE: Reuters 4/25, AUTHOR: Jeremy Pelofsky]
U.S. television broadcasters' hopes were dashed on Tuesday that regulators will soon require extra digital broadcast channels be carried by cable providers, amid division between Federal Communications Commission officials. Republican FCC Chairman Kevin Martin has supported such a requirement and said he would be willing to take another look it, but he also acknowledged that he faced opposition from the two Democrats on the panel. The two Democrats on the FCC, Michael Copps and Jonathan Adelstein, said later on Tuesday they believed it was important to address the public interest obligations of local television broadcasters before addressing the digital channel issue. "We want to make sure there's local content being provided over additional multicast channels, otherwise if it's just repurposed national programming, it doesn't clearly add necessarily that much value to the community from any other cable channel," Commissioner Adelstein told reporters. Commissioner Copps said he wants to discuss broadcasters' public interest obligations and hear from the public about potential benefits of multicasting before he is willing to move forward on the matter. "Until we have a discussion like that, there's no use thinking about reinvigorating this discussion on must-carry," he said. Copps said that it could take less than a year to accomplish that if the parties were willing.
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