What happens if a station chooses the must-carry option?
Must-carry stations are generally guaranteed carriage on the cable system on a preferred channel number. Local commercial television stations have been given the option of electing must-carry status or retransmission consent status, while local noncommercial television stations may only seek carriage on a must-carry basis. Commercial stations that have elected must-carry status have the option of requesting carriage on the same channel number that they occupy over-the-air, on the channel number that the station occupied on July 19, 1985, or on the channel that the station occupied on January 1, 1992. However, television stations may also be carried on any channel that is mutually agreed upon by the station and the cable operator. Q. Why does the channel line-up on my cable system keep changing? A: There may be several different reasons for changes to occur in the cable system’s channel line-up on an on-going basis. First, a new television station may have entered your market. New telev
