Must Carry Proves To Have Staying Power

[Commentary] The must-carry rules have dodged another bullet. T

he Supreme Court last month declined to hear an appeal filed by Cablevision of last year's decision by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit upholding a must-carry "market modification" ruling by the Federal Communications Commission. The must-carry rules have long been a thorn in the side of the cable industry — and understandably so. Those rules compel cable companies to carry local stations in their markets, for free. Of course, recent developments on the retransmission consent front might indicate that local station carriage may in fact have considerable value to cable operators. But still, the concept of "must-carry" — where the government orders a company to give away some of its services for free — is a source of considerable unhappiness in Cable Land.