CFR

76.59—Modification of television markets.

(a) The Commission, following a written request from a broadcast station or a cable system, may deem that the television market of a particular commercial television broadcast station should include additional communities within its television market or exclude communities from such station's television market. In this respect, communities may be considered part of more than one television market.

(b) Such requests for modification of a television market shall be submitted in accordance with § 76.7, petitions for special relief, and shall include the following evidence:

(1) A map or maps illustrating the relevant community locations and geographic features, station transmitter sites, cable system headend locations, terrain features that would affect station reception, mileage between the community and the television station transmitter site, transportation routes and any other evidence contributing to the scope of the market.

(2) Grade B contour maps delineating the station's technical service area and showing the location of the cable system headends and communities in relation to the service areas.

Code of Federal Regulations

Note to paragraph (b)(2): Service area maps using Longley-Rice (version 1.2.2) propagation curves may also be included to support a technical service exhibit.

(3) Available data on shopping and labor patterns in the local market.

(4) Television station programming information derived from station logs or the local edition of the television guide.

(5) Cable system channel line-up cards or other exhibits establishing historic carriage, such as television guide listings.

(6) Published audience data for the relevant station showing its average all day audience (i.e., the reported audience averaged over Sunday-Saturday, 7 a.m.-1 a.m., or an equivalent time period) for both cable and noncable households or other specific audience indicia, such as station advertising and sales data or viewer contribution records.

(c) Petitions for Special Relief to modify television markets that do not include such evidence shall be dismissed without prejudice and may be refiled at a later date with the appropriate filing fee.

(d) A cable operator shall not delete from carriage the signal of a commercial television station during the pendency of any proceeding pursuant to this section.

[58 FR 17361, Apr. 2, 1993, as amended at 64 FR 33796, June 24, 1999; 67 FR 53892, Aug. 22, 2002]

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