Supreme Court: Cable firms must carry broadcast stations

The Supreme Court Monday rejected an appeal by Cablevision and other cable television operators that sought to overturn a federal requirement that they carry local broadcast stations on their systems.

In declining to hear the appeal, the court left intact the federal "must-carry" law, enacted in 1992 when cable television systems faced less competition than they do now.

Bethpage-based Cablevision, the nation's fifth-largest cable TV operator and Newsday's owner, sued the Federal Communications Commission after it required Cablevision to carry the signal of an upstate home-shopping station, WRNN of Kingston, on its Long Island systems. A federal appellate court in New York upheld the FCC's ruling last year.

"We continue to believe that WRNN - a shopping channel that moved its transmitter to reach our service area but has no local viewers - has manipulated the must-carry rules at our customers' expense," Cablevision spokesman Jim Maiella said in a prepared statement. "In doing so, WRNN has exposed just how obsolete these regulations have become, especially in light of the vigorous competition and other market conditions that have developed over the last decade."

The company declined to comment beyond the statement, but it argued in papers that "the monopolistic nature of the cable industry . . . has been replaced by vibrant competition."

For instance, satellite dish television systems and service offered by Verizon compete on Long Island with Cablevision.

Some cable stations, including C-SPAN and the Discovery Channel, supported Cablevision's case, saying that the must-carry rule had the potential to squeeze them off cable systems at the expense of little-watched broadcast stations.

The Obama administration, in papers to the court submitted by Solicitor General Elena Kagan, said cable operators have plenty of capacity to accommodate transmission of broadcast stations, which require access to cable systems to remain viable. Kagan has since been nominated by President Barack Obama for a seat on the Supreme Court.

With wire service reports