Sec. 76.56  Signal carriage obligations.

    (a) Carriage of qualified noncommercial educational stations. A 
cable television system shall carry qualified NCE television stations in 
accordance with the following provisions:
    (1) Each cable operator shall carry on its cable television system 
any qualified local NCE television station requesting carriage, except 
that
    (i) Systems with 12 or fewer usable activated channels, as defined 
in Sec. 76.6(oo), shall be required to carry the signal of one such 
station;

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    (ii) Systems with 13 to 36 usable activated channels, as defined in 
Sec. 76.5(oo), shall be required to carry at least one qualified local 
NCE station, but not more than three such stations; and
    (iii) Systems with more than 36 usable activated channels shall be 
required to carry the signals of all qualified local NCE television 
stations requesting carriage, but in any event at least three such 
signals; however a cable system with more than 36 channels shall not be 
required to carry an additional qualified local NCE station whose 
programming substantially duplicates the programming of another 
qualified local NCE station being carried on the system.

    Note: For purposes of this paragraph, a station will be deemed to 
``substantially duplicate'' the programming of another station if it 
broadcasts the same programming, simultaneous or non-simultaneous, for 
more than 50 percent of prime time, as defined in Sec. 76.5(n), and more 
than 50 percent outside of prime time over a three-month period.

    (2)(i) In the case of a cable system with 12 or fewer channels that 
operates beyond the presence of any qualified local NCE stations, the 
cable operator shall import one qualified NCE television station.
    (ii) A cable system with between 13 and 36 channels that operates 
beyond the presence of any qualified local NCE stations, the cable 
operator shall import at least one qualified NCE television station.
    (3) A cable system with 12 or fewer usable activated channels shall 
not be required to remove any programming service provided to 
subscribers as of March 29, 1990, to satisfy these requirements, except 
that the first available channel must be used to satisfy these 
requirements.
    (4) A cable system with 13 to 36 usable activated channels which 
carries the signal of a qualified local NCE station affiliated with a 
State public television network shall not be required to carry more than 
one qualified local NCE station affiliated with such network, if the 
programming of such additional stations substantially duplicates, as 
defined in the note in paragraph (a)(1) of this section, the programming 
of a qualified local NCE television station receiving carriage.
    (5) Notwithstanding the requirements of paragraph (a)(1) of this 
section, all cable operators shall continue to provide carriage to all 
qualified local NCE television stations whose signals were carried on 
their systems as of March 29, 1990. In the case of a cable system that 
is required to import a distance qualified NCE signal, and such system 
imported the signal of a qualified NCE station as of March 29, 1990, 
such cable system shall continue to import such signal until such time 
as a qualified local NCE signal is available to the cable system. This 
requirements may be waived with respect to a particular cable operator 
and a particular NCE station, upon the written consent of the cable 
operator and the station.
    (b) Carriage of local commercial television stations. Effective June 
2, 1993, a cable television system shall carry local commercial 
broadcast television stations in accordance with the following 
provisions:
    (1) A cable system with 12 or fewer usable activated channels, as 
defined in Sec. 76.5(oo), shall carry the signals of at least three 
qualified local commercial television stations, except that if such 
system serves 300 or fewer subscribers it shall not be subject to these 
requirements as long as it does not delete from carriage the signal of a 
broadcast television station which was carried on that system on October 
5, 1992.
    (2) A cable system with more than 12 usable activated channels, as 
defined in Sec. 76.5(oo), shall carry local commercial television 
stations up to one-third of the aggregate number of usable activated 
channels of such system.
    (3) If there are not enough local commercial television stations to 
fill the channels set aside under paragraphs (b)(1) and (b)(2) of this 
section, a cable operator of a system with 35 or fewer usable activated 
channels, as defined in Sec. 76.5(oo), shall, if such stations exist, 
carry one qualified low power television station and a cable system with 
more than 35 usable activated channels shall carry two qualified low 
power stations.
    (4) Whenever the number of local commercial television stations 
exceeds the maximum number of signals a cable system is required to 
carry under

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paragraph (b)(1) or (b)(2) of this section, the cable operator shall 
have discretion in selecting which such stations shall be carried on its 
cable system, except that
    (i) Under no circumstances shall a cable operator carry a qualified 
low power station in lieu of a local commercial television station; and
    (ii) If the cable operator elects to carry an affiliate of a 
broadcast network, as defined in Sec. 76.55(f), such cable operator 
shall carry the affiliate of such broadcast network whose community of 
license reference point, as defined in Sec. 76.53, is closest to the 
principal headend, as defined in Sec. 76.5(pp), of the cable system.
    (5) A cable operator is not required to carry the signal of any 
local commercial television station that substantially duplicates the 
signal of another local commercial television station that is carried on 
its cable system, or to carry the signals of more than one local 
commercial television station affiliated with a particular broadcast 
network, as defined in Sec. 76.55(f). However, if a cable operator 
declines to carry duplicating signals, such cable operator shall carry 
the station whose community of license reference point, as defined in 
Sec. 76.53, is closest to the principal headend of the cable system. For 
purposes of this paragraph, substantially duplicates means that a 
station regularly simultaneously broadcasts the identical programming as 
another station for more than 50 percent of the broadcast week. For 
purposes of this definition, only identical episodes of a television 
series are considered duplicative and commercial inserts are excluded 
from the comparison. When the stations being compared are licensed to 
communities in different time zones, programming aired by a station 
within one hour of the identical program being broadcast by another 
station will be considered duplicative.
    (6)  [Removed]
    (7) A local commercial television station carried to fulfill the 
requirements of this paragraph, which subsequently elects retransmission 
consent pursuant to Sec. 76.64, shall continue to be carried by the 
cable system until the effective date of such retransmission consent 
election.
    (c) Use of public, educational, or governmental (PEG) channels. A 
cable operator required to carry more than one signal of a qualified low 
power station or to add qualified local NCE stations in fulfillment of 
these must-carry obligations may do so, subject to approval by the 
franchising authority pursuant to Section 611 of the Communications Act 
of 1934, as amended, by placing such additional station on public, 
educational, or governmental channels not in use for their designated 
purposes.
    (d) Availability of signals. (1) Local commercial television 
stations carried in fulfillment of the requirements of this section 
shall be provided to every subscriber of a cable system. Such signals 
shall be viewable via cable on all television receivers of a subscriber 
which are connected to a cable system by a cable operator or for which a 
cable operator provides a connection.
    (2) Qualified local NCE television stations carried in fulfillment 
of the carriage obligations of a cable operator under this section shall 
be available to every subscriber as part of the cable system's lowest 
priced service tier that includes the retransmission of local commercial 
television broadcast signals.
    (3) If a cable operator authorizes subscribers to install additional 
receiver connections, but does not provide the subscriber with such 
connections, or with the equipment and materials for such connections, 
the operator shall notify such subscribers of all broadcast stations 
carried on the cable system which cannot be viewed via cable without a 
converter box and shall offer to sell or lease such a converter box to 
such subscribers. Such notification must be provided by June 2, 1993, 
and annually thereafter and to each new subscriber upon initial 
installation. The notice, which may be included in routine billing 
statements, shall identify the signals that are unavailable without an 
additional connection, the manner for obtaining such additional 
connection and instructions for installation.

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    (e) Identification of must-carry signals. A cable operator shall 
respond in writing within 30 days to any written request by any person 
for the identification of the signals carried on its system in 
fulfillment of the requirements of this section. Pursuant to 
Sec. 76.302, a cable operator must place a list of the broadcast 
television signals carried in fulfillment of these must-carry 
obligations in its public file.
    (f) Carriage of additional broadcast television signals on such 
system shall be at the discretion of the cable operator, subject to the 
retransmission consent rules, Sec. 76.64. A cable system may also carry 
any ancillary service transmission on the vertical blanking interval or 
the aural baseband of any television broadcast signal, including, but 
not limited to, multichannel television sound and teletext.

[ 58 FR 17360 , Apr. 2, 1993, as amended at  58 FR 39161 , July 22, 1993;  58 FR 40368 , July 28, 1993;  59 FR 62344 , Dec. 5, 1994]