TWC Points to Virtual Channel Assignment in Opposition to PMCM Must-Carry Complaint
FCC precedent is clear that a DTV station's virtual channel assignment -- not its RF channel assignment -- is the relevant channel number for deciding the station's on-channel cable position, Time Warner Cable said in an opposition posted Tuesday in…
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docket 16-27 to a must-carry complaint. PMCM last month filed must-carry complaints against TWC, Service Electric Cable TV and RCN Telecom Service over carriage of its WJLP Middletown Township, New Jersey (see 1601210044). In its opposition, TWC said WJLP has no right to carriage on cable channel 3, as it seeks, and TWC's placing it elsewhere is well within the FCC 2008 order on cable operators' post-digital transition responsibilities. Since the digital transition, TWC said, viewers see Program and System Information Protocol channel numbers rather than RF channel numbers as representing a station's "over the air" channel number. Thus, it said, PMCM's "over the air channel" is channel 33, which corresponds to WJLP's virtual channel, while TWC's carriage of WJLP on cable channel 1239 reflects PMCM's demanding carriage on a cable channel other than one on which it has a right to carriage, meaning it was up to TWC to choose a channel for WJLP. PMCM didn't comment.