ACA Reaches Digital-Carriage Deal with Public TV Stations
Small-Cable-Operator Trade Group Announces Pact with Association of Public Television Stations
By Linda Moss -- Multichannel News, 7/31/2007 4:36:00 PM
Monterey, Calif. -- The American Cable Association and public TV stations reached a tentative agreement for the carriage of the broadcasters’ digital-TV signals.
ACA president Matt Polka announced the deal -- which has been in negotiations for more than two years -- at The Independent Show here.
“In our view, it is a great example of how marketplace negotiations, of how industry participants can work on what are very, very difficult digital-carriage programming issues and achieve positive results,” Polka told conference attendees.
The 10-year digital-multicast pact between the ACA and the Association of Public Television Stations will require ratification and adoption by members of both the small-cable-operator lobbying group and the public-station organization.
The agreement will be voluntary for ACA members and PBS stations, according to Polka. And it would just apply to ACA members that offer HDTV signals.
“It is a proposal that focuses specifically on the unique needs and concerns of independent operators, but also encourages something that we know you want to do, which is to carry compelling digital programming,” he added.
The independent conference is the joint meeting of the ACA and the National Cable Television Cooperative.
Referring to the new deal with the public TV stations, Polka said, “It’s an agreement that we’re going to be making available to you through ACA and through our partners at the NCTC, so you can see the details of that proposal.”
The agreement will include digital-TV-carriage commitments of PBS stations both before and after the 2009 digital-TV transition.
Carriage obligations will remain subject to the delivery of a good-quality signal by the participating PBS station, and cable operators under the deal would carry the primary digital signals of the station on their lowest-priced tier, while multicast channels would be offered on a tier where other multicast channels are carried.
