Mike wrote:
 
>Tony suggested that people might demand their cable company carry 68
>if 68 has the Beanpot.  First, I believe the latest Cable Act requires
>cable companies to carry all over-the-air stations within a certain
>area, so people in Boston and surrounding communities must have 68 on
>their cable already, I'd think.  That means in order to increase its
>broadcast area, 68 would have to improve its signal or convince
>companies outside that federally mandated radius to carry their
>programming.
 
This is incorrect.  What the cable act provides is that any public broadcasting
station that wants to be on a cable system within their broadcast area *must* be
placed on that cable system.  This is not true for the commercial stations.
There was a panic around Baltimore about this very problem.  Channel 2 (the
local NBC affiliate) didn't have a contract with Comcast Cable until just about
the last minute.  Everyone was wondering how they were going to watch Seinfeld.
 
What this also did in Baltimore was to take the Washington network affiliates
(which are also in the broadcasting area) off cable and repleace them with some
worthless PBS stations.  So University of Maryland football fans in the
Baltimore area can't watch the MD-Duke game this Saturday because it's only on
channel 7 from Washington.  Oops!  Sorry for the tangent. :-)
 
So if channel 68 is a public station, they can demand to be on all the cable
systems within their broadcast area and the cable companies must comply.
However, if it is a commercial channel, 68 must negotiate with all the cable
companies to carry their station.
 
Dave / RPI '91
LET'S GO RED!!