Cable and Satellite carriage Election by local TV: To Consent or Must-Carry
To be clear, the blackouts are the direct result of a deliberate choice.
Viewers and advertisers are made to suffer.
The rhetoric you see is often along the lines of "(insert name cable or satellite provider) is taking away your access to your favorite (network) programming," as though the it's all the provider's fault. But here's the truth.
Broadcasters always have the option of carriage on cable & satellite systems
The FCC instructs broadcast television station owners to assert carriage election status every 3 years. Their choices are either Consent Agreement or Must-Carry. If the station elects for Must-Carry status, the cable & satellite providers are forced by the FCC to carry that station on the channel lineups.
On the other hand, TV stations are also allowed to force cable & satellite providers to enter into costly consent agreements or be denied permission to retransmit those TV signals. This is where the breakdowns occur.
Why did the FCC make this rule in the first place?
The Communications Act of 1934 forced broadcasters who used programming of other broadcasters to get permission (or consent) from the program originators. That makes sense from an intellectual property standpoint, but back then there were no television stations, nor any multi-channel programming aggregators. However, in 1992 the FCC decided to extend this requirement to cable and satellite systems who were actually providing a valuable service to broadcasters by vastly improving picture quality.
Initially large community antennas would pick up TV stations and carry broadcasts the last mile to the home by a hardwired cable connection. These were capable of receiving better signals than the typical rooftop & rabbit-ear antennas.
In any case, maximizing availability of television signals across all platforms is clearly in the domain of Public Interest, a foundational axiom flouted by the government since the commission was created by Congress. Maximum carriage of TV also benefits the industries advertisers by maximizing the reach of their commercial messaging.
The blacking-out of TV stations to wide swaths of cable & satellite subscribers is counter-intuitive; broadcasters deliberately diminish their audience size.
So there you have it. The next time to hear a local television station whining that cable & satellite systems are the ones denying their views access to their favorite programming, you can confidently call BS!
