DEAR EXPERT
Saving Trees, Reducing Stress
There’s a new system in place for stations to declare their carriage elections. Regulatory maven SCOTT PIPPIN explains. Dear Expert, I keep hearing about sending our station’s retransmission consent and mustcarry elections electronically this year. Do we still have to mail out stacks of election letters? — Muddled in Mississippi Dear Mississippi, were required to send by certified mail. If Worry not! Yes, there are changes in how a letter came back from the post office unyou’ll make your station’s carriage elections claimed, stations tried to figure out what this fall, but they are all for the better. Re- went wrong and sent out a replacement transmission consent and must-carry elec- letter. This lengthy, slow-moving process tions will now be handled electronically. sometimes resulted in a last-minute mad This will require a few initial adjustments, dash to the post office to try to beat the Oct. but after that, it should be smooth sailing. 1 deadline. First, a little background: every three Missed deadlines meant that stations were years, commercial broadcast TV stations stuck with the default status: must-carry for are required to tell the multichannel video cable, and retransmission consent for satprogramming distributors (MVPDs) in ellite carriage. This could be an expensive their markets whether they want to “elect” retransmission consent Stations only need to email cable systems (which requires negotiation of a carriage fee) or must-carry (forc- and satellite providers if they are changing ing distributors to carry a given their election from the previous cycle. station whether they want to or not, but with no compensation to the sta- consequence if a station had to forego retion). We are now in a carriage election year, transmission fees. and the next three-year cycle is 2021-2023. Beginning this fall, the process will be sigIn the past, making this election involved nificantly streamlined. Election notifications an exercise in labor-intensive, time-con- will be handled electronically. Stations will suming and sometimes-expensive paper- upload their choices to their online public work. First, stations had to identify all the inspection files, and in some instances, send MVPDs in their markets, making sure that emails to MVPDs. They will not have to they didn’t miss any changes in ownership send individual election letters by postal mail. or operations that occurred since the last A nice feature of the new system is that three-year election. Next, they had to make if a station chooses the same election for all sure they sent the information to the right MVPDs in its market, it can upload a single contacts at those MVPDs. This was not “blanket” statement to that effect. The statealways a simple task, due to turnovers in ment can be something short and simple personnel, corporate reorganizations, acqui- like, “[Station call sign] elects [must-carry/ sitions or relocations. retransmission consent] on all MVPDs in Next, stations prepared individual elec- the [XX] Designated Market Area for the tion letters for each MVPD, which they 2021-2023 carriage cycle.” The new electronic system allows stations Do you have a professional puzzle that to send election notices via email, rather MFM and BCCA experts might be able to than certified mail, to the affected MVPDs. answer? We’ll mine the contact base and find But stations only need to email cable systems the right person to answer your question. Just contact TFM editor Janet Stilson at and satellite providers if they are changing TFMeditor@mediafinance.org.
6 The Financial Manager • September/October 2020
their election from the previous cycle. For example, if a station elected must-carry in the 2018-2020 cycle, but it wants retransmission consent for the upcoming cycle, it should inform the affected MVPDs by email, and also upload the election notice to its public inspection file. “Carbon copies” of these emails must be sent to the Federal Communications Commission at ElectionNotices@fcc.gov, and copies of the emails must be placed in the station’s public inspection file. Program distributors are supposed to acknowledge receipt of the emails. If they don’t, stations must call the MVPD. Even if a given MVPD doesn’t respond, a station’s choice is deemed effective when it uploads its election notice to its online public inspection file. Stations are required to upload to their online public inspection files the contact information of the employee who handles carriage inquiries. The information goes in a new section of the files called Carriage Election Contact Information. The deadline to upload this contact information was July 31, 2020, but if your station has not done so yet, upload it as soon as possible. MVPDs were required to upload their contact information to a separate database called the Cable Operations and Licensing System (COALS), also by July 31. One final note: there are slightly different procedures for noncommercial, low power TV, and translator stations. Be sure to check with a broadcast attorney if you operate one of them. Now you’re ready to make your electronic 2020 election notices. And you can save postage and trees in the process. Scott Pippin is senior counsel at Lerman Senter PLLC. He can be reached at spippin@lermansenter.com or (202) 416-1081.
