Washington Post 2004 Annual Report Download - page 24

community designated by the FCC. As a result of these obligations (the constitutionality of which has been upheld by the
U.S. Supreme Court), certain of the Company's cable systems have had to carry broadcast stations that they might not
otherwise have elected to carry, and the freedom the Company's systems would otherwise have to drop signals previously
carried has been reduced.
Also as explained in the preceding section, at three-year intervals beginning in October 1993 commercial broadcasters
have had the right to forego must-carry rights and insist instead that their signals not be carried without their prior consent.
Under legislation enacted in 1999, Congress barred broadcasters from entering into exclusive retransmission consent
agreements through 2006. In November 2004 Congress extended the ban on exclusive retransmission consent
agreements until the end of 2010. The Company's cable systems have been able to continue carrying virtually all of the
stations insisting on retransmission consent. In doing so, no agreements have been made to pay any station for the privilege
of carrying its signal. However, some commitments have been made to carry other program services offered by a station
or an affiliated company, to purchase advertising on a station, to provide advertising availabilities on cable for sale by a
station, and to distribute promotional announcements with respect to a station.
As has already been noted, the FCC has determined that only television stations broadcasting in a DTV-only mode can
require local cable systems to carry their DTV signals and that if a DTV signal contains multiple video streams only a single
stream of video is required to be carried. The imposition of additional must-carry obligations, either by the FCC or as a
result of legislative action, could result in the Company's cable systems being required to delete some existing programming
to make room for broadcasters' DTV channels.
Various other provisions in current federal law may significantly affect the costs or profits of cable television systems. These
matters include a prohibition on exclusive franchises, restrictions on the ownership of competing video delivery services,
restrictions on transfers of cable television ownership, a variety of consumer protection measures, and various regulations
intended to facilitate the development of competing video delivery services. Other provisions benefit the owners of cable
systems by restricting regulation of cable television in many significant respects, requiring that franchises be granted for
reasonable periods of time, providing various remedies and safeguards to protect cable operators against arbitrary
refusals to renew franchises, and limiting franchise fees to 5% of a cable system's gross revenues.
Apart from its authority under the 1992 Cable Act and the Telecommunications Act of 1996, the FCC regulates various
other aspects of cable television operations. Since 1990 cable systems have been required to black out from the distant
broadcast stations they carry syndicated programs for which local stations have purchased exclusive rights and requested
exclusivity. Other long-standing FCC rules require cable systems to delete under certain circumstances duplicative network
programs broadcast by distant stations. The FCC also imposes certain technical standards on cable television operators,
exercises the power to license various microwave and other radio facilities frequently used in cable television operations,
and regulates the assignment and transfer of control of such licenses. In addition, pursuant to the Pole Attachment Act, the
FCC exercises authority to disapprove unreasonable rates charged to cable operators by most telephone and power
utilities for utilizing space on utility poles or in underground conduits. However the Pole Attachment Act does not apply to
poles and conduits owned by municipalities or cooperatives. Also, states can reclaim exclusive jurisdiction over the rates,
terms and conditions of pole attachments by certifying to the FCC that they regulate such matters, and several states in
which the Company has cable operations have so certified. A number of cable operators (including the Company's Cable
One subsidiary) are using their cable systems to provide not only television programming but also Internet access. In
2002, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the FCC's authority under the Pole Attachment Act extends to all pole attachments
by cable operators, including those attachments used to provide Internet access. Thus, except where individual states have
assumed regulatory responsibility or where poles or conduits are owned by a municipality or cooperative, the rates
charged for pole or conduit access by cable companies are subject to FCC rate regulation regardless of whether or not
the cable companies are providing Internet access in addition to the delivery of television programming.
The Copyright Act of 1976 gives cable television systems the ability, under certain terms and conditions and assuming that
any applicable retransmission consents have been obtained, to retransmit the signals of television stations pursuant to a
compulsory copyright license. Those terms and conditions permit cable systems to retransmit the signals of local television
stations on a royalty-free basis; however in most cases cable systems retransmitting the signals of distant stations are
required to pay certain license fees set forth in the statute or established by subsequent administrative regulations. The
compulsory license fees have been increased on several occasions since this Act went into effect. In 1994 the availability
of a compulsory copyright license was extended to ""wireless cable'' for both local and distant television signals. Direct
broadcast satellite (""DBS'') operators have had a compulsory copyright license since 1988, although that license was
limited to distant television signals and only permitted the delivery of the signals of distant network-affiliated stations to
subscribers who could not receive an over-the-air signal of a station affiliated with the same network. However, in 1999
Congress enacted the Satellite Home Viewer Improvement Act, which created a royalty-free compulsory copyright license
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