here is news report about the sv channels in Dallas Texas
Television choices to change
By Kathy Williams
Herald Democrat
By New Year, fans of Fox 4 and UPN broadcasts out of Dallas won't find those stations offered in Grayson County if agreements currently under negotiation are signed. Gray Television Services of Texas-Sherman, which owns CBS affiliate KXII television, is working on agreements with Fox and UPN to create Fox (Texoma) and UPN (Texoma).
How that affects television viewers' daily fare, particularly that of sports and morning news magazine fans, depends on deals Gray Television is negotiating.
KXII television station manager, Rick Dean, said he had no comment on any questions asked about the negotiations or what programming the stations will offer. Fox Broadcasting representative Scott Grogan said Friday, “Fox Broadcasting is in discussions with Gray Television regarding a digital carriage affiliation.” A spokesman with UPN would not discuss whether his company had reached an agreement with Gray Television to become an affiliate.
Although the network agreements have not been confirmed, Gray Television has entered into an agreement with CableOne to carry the networks on the same channels their Dallas counterparts occupy now, CableOne General Manager Claude Edwards said. On CableOne, Fox will still appear on Channel 4, and UPN on Channel 6. Edwards said his company will not offer the Dallas versions in the Sherman-Ada designated market area.
UPN offers just two hours a day of prime-time network programming. The rest is up to the local station. UPN-21 out of Dallas offers 30 Dallas Mavericks basketball games each season.
Dallas Mavericks Director of Broadcasts Dave Evans said UPN in Sherman has negotiated a deal to become an affiliate of the Mavericks and will carry 13 of the 30 over-the-air games. The other 50-plus games are carried on Fox Sports Southwest or other networks and are not affected by the deals.
“That's the most games they (UPN in Sherman) are choosing to air,” Evans said. “We can't force them to air all of them. They just tell us what they can air and we do those.”
Edwards said he expects UPN Texoma begin operations over the cable in mid-December and Fox Texoma at the end of the year.
Evans said the only way viewers here could see the additional 17 Mavericks games are to access UPN-21 out of Dallas.
Mark Lumpkin, a spokesman for DISH Network, said that company's Grayson County viewers cannot currently receive UPN out of Dallas or Sherman-Ada. However, basketball fans who subscribe to DISH Network can add HD Net, a high-definition signal, through which Mavericks owner Mark Cuban offers some of the games. DISH also offers basketball season packages that offer all the games played.
Lumpkin said his company will offer Fox out of Sherman when it becomes available, and for most satellite subscribers, that will be the only available source for the primary Fox Network. Other Fox-owned channels, such as Fox Sports and Fox News, are not affected by the change.
“The good news is we are looking to expand our TV lineup when these local stations are available,” Lumpkin said.
Robert Mercer, with satellite provider DirecTV's corporate office, said his company doesn't carry either Dallas or local market station signals to its customers here.
Asked if he had the option of offering the Mavericks games on a separate channel, Edwards replied, “We're not going to duplicate, basically when Fox 4 goes away, Fox Texoma goes on and we won't duplicate programming one from the other. Under FCC rules, unless you carry a channel in its entirety, you can't cherry pick its programs.”
Asked how carrying two Fox or UPN channels on the cable is different from carrying two CBS or ABC affiliates as it currently does, Edwards explained that at one time the Dallas market encompassed Grayson County, but that has changed. The old stations were grandfathered in. New stations from Dallas now would be considered out-of-market.
Edwards added that CableOne carries both KXAS 5 and KTEN because “we have an agreement, number one, with Channel 5 to carry them, and KTEN, we have an agreement to carry them. But we don't have an agreement with Fox in Dallas at the present time or with UPN in Dallas at the present time. Since KXII is carrying them, as a local channel of sorts on their multiplex, then it will replace them for carriage rights.”
Asked if his company legally could carry both UPN Texoma and UPN Dallas, Edwards replied, “There's no physical law against it that someone would get put in jail, but there are certain financial aspects of the point, some requirements of syndication exclusivity and non-duplication requests.”
Edwards also said that he was not involved with negotiating the contract, “but basically, it doesn't do us any good to carry two channels that are 80 percent duplicated.”
Asa Jessee, general manager for KTEN television, said FCC regulations for cable companies stipulate that they must carry local broadcast stations. Once every three years, television broadcasters elect which of two relationships they will have with cable companies. If they elect to be a “must carry” station, the cable must carry their signal on its original channel or one on which they agree, but is not required to pay the broadcaster for a signal.
If the broadcaster elects the retransmission option, as KXII evidently did, then the broadcaster and the cable company negotiate a contract. Jessee said those contracts can include just about any arrangement that's otherwise legal. For example, the length of the contract could be longer than the three-year must-carry period. The cable company could pay the broadcaster a certain amount per subscriber or the broadcaster could pay the cable company. The cable company could agree to carry new channels in exchange for a longer contract.
And, he said, the cable company could chose to carry the Dallas stations as well. Must-carry rights do not extend to channels other than the primary channel.
“Must-carry only applies to local stations. If you follow the national news, the Dallas-based company, NextStar Media, owns a lot of television stations and it demanded that cable companies pay them to carry their signal,” Jessee said. “Lots of cable companies, including several in Texas, refused and dropped them. Pretty much, cable companies are drawing the line at paying for signals.”
U.S. Federal Communications Commission regulations determine what cable and satellite stations may and must offer their subscribers based on which DMA (designated market area) their signals originate in. Television signals originate either “in market” or “out-of-market.” Some signals are called “distant networks.” And rules differ for satellite and cable companies.
The FCC also gives viewers additional access to stations in particular markets whose product is “significantly viewed.” The only way to change that, Lumpkin said, is to write to the stations to ask that they seek a “significantly viewed” status in Grayson County.
He said the process of gaining such a status can be lengthy and might not be successful.
Lumpkin also said federal laws treat satellite and cable carriers differently. Currently, and in most cases, satellite providers can't offer both a Sherman and a Dallas market signal to their subscribers.
The only way to change that is to petition federal legislators to change the law.
Chris Cavender, who with his wife Laura owns and operates a satellite television installation service, said he's been frustrated by the federal rules for years. What satellite services they may offer their subscribers changes frequently, he said. Some new subscribers can't even get signals he offers to others in Grayson County. And Grayson County subscribers can't get stations, like UPN-21 that those in Fannin, Cooke and Collin have always gotten.
The number of local stations replacing Dallas area broadcasts is likely to increase, Jessee said. But the same technology could also bring locally-generated programming unique to the area.
Digital television technology innovations allow broadcasters to split their signals into up to six broadcast channels, Jessee explained. So, potentially, local viewers would be able to receive up to 12 local stations without broadcast corporations needing to obtain new channel designations from the FCC. That's an important point, because of other changes Congress and the FCC are creating in the world of television and other transmission regulation.
Nazifa Sawez, a spokeswoman for the FCC, calls the practice of broadcasting more than one signal from a station's bandwidth, multi-casting. Such splitting must be reported and broadcasters must pay fees for each.
Sawez explained that the FCC has stopped issuing new licenses for both high- and low-power stations. That's because the federal government is clearing space in the airways (called bandwidth) to protect emergency communications from interference and disruption.
