WASHINGTON—The FCC has adopted a proposal that would require low power television stations that qualify as must-carry stations to send email notices of carriage election status to affected multichannel video programming distributors. This is a similar requirement the FCC gave to full power TV stations in 2019.
LPTVs will be subject to the same procedures for emailing MVPDs in the event of a change of carriage election status as full power TV stations. However, one area where they will differ is that LPTVs will not be required to make their carriage election statements available for public inspection.
In replacing the public file obligation, LPTVs, as well as qualified NCE translator stations, will be required to send a “single ‘baseline’ notice via email to MVPDs on which they will be seeking or expecting carriage in the 2021-2023 carriage cycle, even if they are making no change in their election status,” the FCC report and order reads.
All email notice to MVPDs must be sent by Oct. 1, 2020, per the FCC.
The full FCC report & order is available online.
