Also known as:must carry obligations · must-carry · must carry · must-carry rules · must-carry requirements
Written by attorneys · grounded in primary & secondary sources — see below
Statutory requirements that obligate cable television operators to transmit the signals of specified local broadcast stations on their systems without charge. The obligations compel carriage even when the operator would prefer to exclude the stations and allocate the channel capacity to other programming.
Sources & Authorities
How it applies
Common Examples
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Cable Operator Challenges Local Carriage Mandate
Meridian Motors owns a cable system serving a mid-sized city. Federal rules require it to devote twelve channels to local broadcast stations. Meridian prefers to use those slots for premium movie services that generate higher revenue. When the FCC enforces the carriage rules, Meridian sues claiming the mandate compels speech. The court applies intermediate scrutiny and upholds the rules after finding they advance the government's interest in preserving free over-the-air broadcasting without burdening substantially more speech than necessary.
Agency Reconsiders Must-Carry Enforcement
Majestic Construction operates a cable franchise in a rural county. The company petitions the FCC to drop must-carry obligations for two distant broadcast stations whose signals reach only a handful of subscribers. The agency reviews the statutory command afresh and decides the carriage requirement still serves the interest in local programming access. Majestic must continue transmitting the signals or face fines.
Select any source to read its text and confirm it supports the definition.
Cases
Study Supplements
State Attempts Price Controls on Carriage Fees
Monarch Pharmaceuticals leases channel space on a regional cable network. State regulators impose must-carry rules modeled on the federal statute and simultaneously cap any fees the operator may charge local stations. The cable company objects that the combined regime exceeds traditional economic regulation. The court sustains the carriage obligation as a content-neutral measure while striking the price cap as an unrelated burden on speech.
Disability Access Claim Collides with Must-Carry
Mirage Hotels runs a cable system inside its resort properties. A federal accessibility rule requires captioning on all must-carry broadcast channels. Mirage argues the added expense effectively enlarges the statutory carriage burden beyond what Congress authorized. The court holds that the accessibility mandate is a separate obligation that does not alter the validity of the underlying must-carry rules.
Door-to-Door Solicitation and Channel Access
A religious broadcaster seeks mandatory carriage on a cable system under must-carry rules. The operator refuses, citing a local ordinance that limits solicitation on private property. The broadcaster invokes the must-carry statute while the operator defends the ordinance as a content-neutral time-place-manner restriction. The court separates the statutory carriage duty from the solicitation rule and enforces the former.
Interstate Cable System and Channel Allocation
A cable operator serving two states must decide how to allocate limited channels between local broadcasters in each jurisdiction. Must-carry obligations in both states claim the same slots. The operator argues that federal commerce power preempts conflicting state demands. The court recognizes that the federal must-carry statute supplies the uniform rule that resolves the allocation conflict.
Common questions
Frequently Asked
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What level of scrutiny governs a First Amendment challenge to must-carry obligations?+
Content-neutral must-carry rules receive intermediate scrutiny. The government must demonstrate that the rules advance an important interest unrelated to the suppression of speech and do not burden substantially more speech than necessary.
Supporting sources
Do must-carry obligations apply to every cable system regardless of size?+
The statute tiers the number of required local stations according to the system's channel capacity. Systems with twelve or fewer channels carry one local noncommercial station. Larger systems carry additional commercial and noncommercial stations up to statutory ceilings.
Supporting sources
May a cable operator charge local broadcast stations for carriage required by must-carry rules?+
The statute prohibits the operator from charging fees for must-carry carriage except in narrowly defined circumstances. The prohibition prevents the operator from converting the statutory duty into a revenue source.
Supporting sources
How does a court decide whether a must-carry rule is narrowly tailored?+
The court examines whether the government considered less restrictive alternatives and whether the chosen means leave the operator sufficient remaining capacity to transmit its preferred programming. Displacement of only a modest percentage of channel space supports a finding of narrow tailoring.
Supporting sources
22 U.S. (9 Wheat.) 1 (1824)Constitutional Law
…part of which is indicated by the term. If this be the admitted meaning of the word, in its application to foreign nations, it must carry the same meaning throughout the sentence, and remain a unit, unless there be some plain intelligible cause which alters it. The subject to which the power is next applied, is to commerce…