NCTA Backs Must-Carry Challenge

The National Cable & Telecommunications Association is among those supporting Cablevision's appeal of the must-carry rules at the Supreme Court.

The trade group Friday (Feb. 26) said it had filed a brief in support of the challenge. In that brief, NCTA cited the Federal Communications Commission's inquiry into whether broadcast spectrum could be reclaimed for wireless broadband as part of its argument (the FCC just this week outlined is reclamation/auction plan). "With even the Commission suggesting that broadcast spectrum should be put to better use, it is clear that broadcast television no longer serves an 'important' government interest to the extent that it used to," said NCTA. NCTA said that "changed circumstance" has "drastically" shifted the balance between the government's interest in must-carry and its burden on speech.