DMA System Creates Difficulty for Public TV, APTS, PBS Say

The FCC should consider the challenges the designated market area system imposes on public television stations, said America’s Public Television Stations and PBS in joint reply comments posted Tuesday in docket 22-239. The proceeding concerns updates to the Nielsen publication the FCC and broadcasters rely on to determine station DMAs, but the public media groups raised larger concerns about cable headend consolidation and DBS orphan counties squeezing out public media coverage. “While the triennial carriage cycle and its associated updates to DMA assignments are inapplicable to the cable carriage of NCE stations, satellite carriage rights for NCE stations are based on DMA borders,” the filing said. That means public TV stations must subscribe to DMA data to keep their satellite carriage rights, the filing said. Cable headend consolidation can affect public TV stations when a headend is moved to a location “beyond a station’s contour and more than 50 miles from its community of license reference point” -- the boundary conditions that trigger “must-carry” rules. “This can result in cable subscribers losing access to their local public TV stations,” the filing said. The public media groups also renewed a call from 2015 for the FCC to “begin a dialogue with public television and DBS operators to explore creative and effective solutions to the unavailability of local public TV licensee statewide signals.” In their own reply comments, all four broadcast affiliate station groups seconded NAB’s proposal that the FCC “exercise prudence in relying solely on confidential Nielsen data when it comes to local television stations’ compliance with Commission rules.” The FCC should “consider potential sources of market assignment data other than Nielsen should such alternative assignment data become available in the future,” the groups said.