DTV-Carriage Item Makes FCC Meeting Agenda

Extension of Program-Access Rules Also on the Docket

By John Eggerton -- Broadcasting & Cable, 9/4/2007 7:31:00 PM

The Federal Communications Commission issued its agenda for the Sept. 11 public meeting Tuesday, and it is scheduled to include votes on cable's carriage of TV stations after the transition to digital, as well as maintaining the program-access rules for another five years.

Those are the rules that require vertically integrated cable operators to make their programming available to unaffiliated distributors at nondiscriminatory prices. 

The commission is also expected to open an inquiry into cable-programmer bundling of networks at the same time it re-ups the access rules.

The other media item on the agenda would apply the FCC's loosening of video-franchise requirements for telcos to incumbent cable operators -- something the cable industry has been requesting and commission said it planned to do.