The head of a Christian broadcasting association has filed fresh comments with the Federal Communications Commission calling for the agency to make cable services carry all multicast TV signals broadcast in the area.

"The single most important issue facing all independently owned stations is multicast must-carry/anti-stripping," Bob D'Andrea, President of the Christian Television Network (CTN), wrote to the FCC. "Without multicast must-carry/anti-stripping in digital television, smaller stations will struggle and local viewers may eventually lose access to valuable community oriented programs."

TV stations with digital signals can now "multicast"—broadcast more than one stream of video over their frequency. But cable companies want the right to relay what the law calls the "primary" signal, and that alone.

The networks and big cable companies have been at odds over this issue for years. The FCC has been unable to come to a consensus either. D'Andrea's filing reflects a dogged campaign by CTN and an allied network, Religious Voices in Broadcasting (RVB), to keep the issue alive.

Much of D'Andrea's January 16th filing comes from comments he made at the FCC's recent hearing on media ownership issues in Nashville, Tennessee. CTN's president argues that

• "Anti-stripping" rules—prohibitions against cable companies cherry picking which signals to carry—are embedded in the 1992 Cable Television Consumer Protection and Competition Act of 1992. "The anti-stripping concept is merely an extension of existing law," D'Andrea writes.
• Must carry will create a more level playing field for smaller broadcasters. D'Andrea describes the digital TV future as one dominated by "a few ultra large cable companies" that will "carry all the programming and will dictate to customers what they will watch" unless the FCC acts on this issue.
• The programming offered by the RVB network represents a positive alternative to the "violent, profane, indecent and pornography programming" that has "inundated cable-only channels." D'Andrea's filing extolls RVB shows targeted to youth, such as Pulse TV, geared towards Christian music videos, and Underground, a program that showcases urban Christian hip-hop artists.
• The FCC unfairly requires broadcasters to go digital without requiring cable companies to carry all their new signals. D'Andrea estimates the re-engineering cost to Nashville's WHTN, a Christian oriented TV outlet, at 2 million dollars. "Our stations are struggling with the burden of developing digital programming plans in an uncertain regulatory environment," D'Andrea writes, "while simultaneously financing the costs of an unfunded, federally mandated digital build out . . . "

The lack of a consensus on the digital must-carry question has prevented the FCC from voting on the issue over the last six months. But that has not stopped filers from inundating the Commission with comments on the issue.

On January 23rd, representatives of Freedom Broadcasting Inc. and CBS Television Network Affiliates met with FCC Chair Kevin Martin on the quandary.

The two groups emphatically support an anti-stripping provision, and emphasized "the impact on consumers and television broadcasters of allowing cable operators to act as gatekeepers with respect to the free, digital multicast programming streams offered by television stations in their local markets."

Although the cable trade associations have yet to file on the issue this year, in 2006 they took their perspective to the FCC on a regular basis.

"Over the course of this proceeding’s eight-year history, the broadcasters have been unable to provide any factual or predictive evidence that an expansion of must carry rights to cover not only the main signal carried today but also all secondary digital streams is somehow necessary for their stations’ survival," a June 27th, 2006 filing by the National Cable & Telecommunications Association contended.