Noncommercial TV stations are telling the Federal Communications Comission that the consolidation of multichannel video programming distributor (MVPD) headends is cutting off access to some of their audience and could threaten their carriage rights altogether.

PBS and America’s Public Television Stations made that point in a filing with the commission in response to its proposed rulemaking on how to determine a TV station’s designated market area for must-carry purposes.

The FCC is looking at how best to determine a TV station's local market from must-carry purposes.

A noncommercial station can only qualify for must-carry if a headend is within its service contour or within 50 miles of its community of license “reference point.”

But the noncoms said that given changes in cable architecture, with cable operators able to serve more systems from a single headend, that cost efficiency for operators has disrupted viewer access when a headend is moved.

PBS and APTS said they have recieved numerous reports of headend consolidations causing losses in access to local communities. “[A]s a result of headend consolidation in southeastern Georgia,” they told the FCC, “2,200 Georgia residents served by cable systems that had received [Georgia Public Broadcasting] stations for decades lost access to those stations” and their “Georgia-specific news and public affairs programming.”

Theoretically, they said, there appeared to be no regulatory defense against cable operators consolidating their headend to the point that one could feed many dozens of systems in numerous DMA across multiple states. 

“[T]he result would be that only the station or stations located close to the single headend would qualify for carriage on all of the systems served by the single headend,” they said. “The rest of the noncommercial stations that served the states and DMAs in which the consolidated systems were located would have no carriage rights whatsoever.”

They told the FCC they value their partnerships with MVPDs, but that headend relocations should not come at the expense of public-TV viewers. ■

The Federal Communications Commission voted unanimously Thursday (July 14) to tentatively adopt Nielsen's Local TV Report as the successor to the company's phased-out TV Station Index. The FCC uses the Nielsen info to determine TV station markets for must-carry/retransmission consent carriage elections and other purposes.

New elections are due in 2023.

But one commissioner, Republican Nathan Simington, used that vote to suggest the FCC's reliance on Nielsen data for that and many other purposes could be an overreliance on a single source that needed examining and perhaps rethinking.

“The commission looks to Nielsen to determine whether a broadcast station is ‘significantly viewed’ outside of its market,” Simington said in a lengthy statement at the FCC's July public meeting. “Nielsen’s market-level TV household estimates determine whether a station is within the ‘Top Four’ in the market, impacting ownership possibilities for broadcasters. And whether a station is failing for the purposes of ownership rules — again, Nielsen.”

He said it was a “big deal” to have a company “formally blessed” by the FCC by name as the basis of those regulatory determinations.

Looking for ‘Choke Points’ 

Simington said the reliance on Nielsen is understandable given that it is essentially the only game in town. That may not be a bad thing, he said, but it was worth looking at potential “bottlenecks, choke points and single points of failure.”

Elaborating on the point, he pointed out that the Media Ratings Council (MRC), which accredits media ratings agencies, had suspended Nielsen’s accreditation last year for "deep-rooted" performance issues, an accreditation Nielsen has yet to regain.

While Simington said he was confident Nielsen would work “diligently” to correct its defects, he said the suspension should “give the FCC pause” about being functionally obligated to adopt “recently unaccredited Nielsen data and definitions.”

“Might our obligation to act in the public interest even require us to, where possible, encourage innovation, or even just an alternative, in broadcast viewership and listenership analytics, so we avoid subjecting American media to this single point of failure in our broadcast regulatory scheme?” he said.

If broadcasters are obligated to buy and rely on data that could be inaccurate, Simington asked, do they have tools they can use to complete?

He pointed to the loss of broadcast ads to online platforms. “[T]here are reasons for this outside of the accuracy and completeness of audience analytics — the secular trend of media consumption is toward online platforms, which drives the advertising dollar. OK, sure. But is it not at least worth taking into account that among the considerations that advertisers — especially small businesses — cite for doing online advertising is the high trust they place in granular audience analytics?” he said, adding: “If advertisers believe that the main source of viewership and listenership data that they use to make buys on broadcast stations is unreliable, might that push them away from broadcast and toward online advertising platforms where data are considered more reliable?”

Consider the Sources

So, while the FCC item he supported made a “ministerial” change in rules, he said be believed the agency needed to take a harder look at Nielsen's inclusion in almost two dozen FCC rules. “If there are opportunities to identify or generate new sources of broadcast data, we should take them,” he said. “If there are improvements to be made in our usage of broadcast data, we should make them. And if our ties to Nielsen ultimately represent a structural impediment to the public interest, necessity, and convenience — we should break them."

FCC chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel, who spoke after Simington, said the issue was complicated but she wanted to make sure every household can receive programming from where they live. She did not respond to Simington’s suggestion for an inquiry into Nielsen. ▪️

Walter E. Dellinger III, who as assistant solicitor general in 1996 successfully argued that the cable must-carry rules were constitutional, has died in Chapel Hill, N.C. Dellinger was the Douglas B. Maggs Professor Emeritus of Law at Duke University.

Dellinger was acting solicitor general in 1996-97 when he argued successfully in Turner Broadcasting System, Inc. v. FCC before the Supreme Court that the 1992 Cable Act's requirement that cable operators reserve channels for local broadcast TV (must-carry) was a content-neutral regulation of speech that served three important government interests: preserving free over-the-air TV, promoting a diversity of information sources, and promoting TV competition.

The Supreme Court, in a 5-4 decision, concluded that there was "substantial evidence to support Congress' conclusion that enactment of must-carry was justified by a real threat to local broadcasting's economic health. The harm Congress feared was that broadcast stations dropped or denied cable carriage would be at a serious risk of financial difficulty."

Dellinger served in the Clinton White House as a presidential advisor on constitutional issues. He was named assistant attorney general in 1993 and was a resident faculty member at Duke from 1969 until 1993.

He was born in Charlotte, N.C. May 15, 1941, and graduated with honors from the University of North Carolina. He graduated from Yale Law and clerked for Supreme Court Justice Hugo Black. ■

The Federal Communications Commission has denied the must-carry complaint of WGBP Opelika, Alabama (licensed to Columbus, Georgia), against DirecTV, but signaled the station can qualify for carriage next time around.

There are three-year cycles for must-carry elections, but a new station can file for must-carry without having to wait for a new cycle.

WGBP was already being carried in Columbus by DirecTV in September 2020 when Nielsen changed the station‘s designated market area (DMA) to Atlanta. The station then put in a transmitter in the Atlanta DMA and demanded immediate mandatory carriage by DirecTV in Atlanta, saying the new transmitter — part of a transition to a distributed transmission system (DTS) — made it a new station that could seek carriage even though it was not the beginning of a must-carry cycle.

DirecTV denied the request, saying the station was not new under FCC rules. WGBP already had some viewers in the Atlanta DMA, though the station argued it was so limited as not to count, and filed the complaint in April 2021.

The FCC concluded that WGBP, which carries NBCUniversal's LX and other multicast networks, was not a new station because it had been providing some over-the-air service in Atlanta — there is nothing in the rules about exceptions for “very little” service, and did not become a new station in the market by locating a DTS transmitter there.

“Accordingly, because the Station is not a new television station in the Atlanta market (and no other exception applies), it may not assert new carriage rights in that market in the middle of an election cycle,” the FCC said

But the silver lining is that the FCC said it agrees with the station that when the next cycle comes around, it can assert must-carry rights in both Columbus and Atlanta. ■

Cable operators are asking the FCC to make it clear its decades-old program-
carriage mandates are constitutionally suspect.

And while they have signaled to the regulator they are OK with leaving the question of the constitutionality of must-carry for another day, operators want the FCC to soften that ground with precedential language they could use if, and more likely when, they do want to take aim at must-carry and other carriage-related mandates.

In teleconferences earlier this month with top staffers to all five commissioners and the chief of the Media Bureau, representatives of NCTA-The Internet & Television Association and über-members Comcast, Charter Communications and Cox Communications pressed the FCC to continue to consider the constitutionality of enforced speech regulations, in this case the leased-access rules operators say are unconstitutional speech restrictions.

RELATED: Broadcasters Challenge Constitutionality of Carriage Mandates

In June 2019, the FCC voted unanimously (with a couple of partial dissents) to tweak the rules requiring cable operators over a certain size to lease channel capacity to independent programmers at regulated rates. More recently, it voted to allow operators to charge tier-specific rates. The agency also sought comment on whether the rules should be scrapped in their entirety as unconstitutional.

Leased-access providers obviously don't think the rules are OK, and broadcasters are in agreement — and not because stations lease access on cable. But if the rules were considered a violation of cable operators’ First Amendment right to choose the content on their systems, the must-carry regime that allows broadcasters to claim free carriage on cable could be in jeopardy.

In their meetings with FCC staffers this month, cable operators cheered the tier-specific rate change. But they also expressed their “strong support” for the agency’s conclusion, which the two Democratic members dissented from, that leased access rests on a shaky constitutional foundation in light of the changes in the video marketplace.

They asked the FCC to make it even clearer that the “constitutional foundation is in substantial doubt.” But while cable operators have long argued that must-carry is a similar unconstitutional infringement on their editorial control of channel lineups and capacity, as well as an illegal takings under the Fifth Amendment, they did not overplay that hand.

They told the staffers that the FCC’s leased access order “appropriately concludes that it need not express any opinion on the constitutionality of other carriage-related obligations in this proceeding, which is focused solely on the leased access regime.”

But the FCC would be strengthening cable’s case against must-carry if, as the cable companies asked in the meeting, it “bolstered” the conclusions about leased access and the First Amendment by reference to some legal precedent NCTA and company offered up.

Cable operators want the FCC to bolster the Draft Second Report and Order’s conclusion that leased access is constitutionally suspect. They say the FCC can do that by specifically referencing a 2015 Supreme Court decision that they say trumps the 1996 Time Warner Entertainment decision that regulation is content-based “only if it favors or disfavors particular speech or views.”

TWE’s holding that leased access and must-carry are not content-based has provided the chief defense against arguments by the FCC and cable operators that there are First Amendment issues with them since if they were considered regulations based on types of speech, they would have to pass “strict” scrutiny to pass constitutional muster. Content regulation is not unconstitutional, but it must be narrowly tailored and further a compelling government interest.

Cable operators say the 2015 Supreme Court decision in Reed v. Town of Gilbert supersedes the TWE ruling and holds that speech regulation is content-based even if it does not discriminate among viewpoints. They also pointed to the language in a 2018 decision in National Institute of Family & Life Advocates v. Becerra that “a content-based regulation of speech occurs whenever the government compels a party to alter the content of its speech.”

RELATED: TV Stations Ask FCC to Revive Item Regulating OTT

They asked the FCC to reference that precedent in the order, which would not only boster their case against the constitutionality of leased access, but would be precedent they could turn to for a must-carry challenge.

The National Association of Broadcasters got wind of cable’s requests for precedential language and pushed back, saying the FCC only needs to show only to show "that cable operators remained “dominant in some video distribution markets" to justify regulations, something the NAB said is clearly still the case. 

It looks like the days of certified mail carriage elections are going the way of the pony express.

The FCC will vote July 10 on adopting a broadcast and cable compromise approach to carriage elections notifications, as well as extending it to DBS carriage elections. It is expected to be approved. 

Related: FCC Denies KMTP Must-Carry Election Complaint 

The FCC sought comment last December on the proposal, which came from NCTA-The Internet & Television Association and the National Association of Broadcasters. It allows broadcasters' triennial carriage elections--must carry or retrans--to be posted to their online FCC public files, rather than the current requirement that they be made to the MVPD via certified mail.  

Broadcasters will only be required to inform MVPDS--and it can be by email rather than certified mail--if they change their election. 

Broadcasters and cable operators will have to maintain a designated phone number and e-mail address for carriage elections in their FCC public files and cable operators will have to verify receipt of carriage election emails they get from stations. 

ACA Connects had said smaller cable operators might need more time to comply and asked the FCC to give them that time and require broadcasters to keep sending the registered mail elections in the interim. The FCC was unpersuaded, and said all cable operators would need to have their new contact info to the FCC by July 31, 2020. "Although we recognize ACA’s concerns, we find that the burdens of our new rules will be minimal for small cable operators and that it will not take any entity a great amount of time to come into compliance," the FCC order says. 

The FCC will also vote on a Further Notice seeking input on how to deal with any broadcasters and MVPDs that don't maintain public databases at the FCC. They will have to continue with the certified mail elections until that issue is resolved.  

The American Cable Association is asking the FCC to tweak a cable-broadcast compromise on carriage election notifications with which it generally agrees.

That came in reply comments on an FCC proposal, comments delayed due to the government shutdown.

According to the deal struck by NCTA-The Internet & Television Association and the National Association of Broadcasters, starting with the 2020 election cycle, "a commercial broadcast TV station would be required to send notice of its must carry or retransmission consent election to a cable operator only if the station changed its election status from its previous election. In those cases, the broadcaster would send its notice to an email address listed in the cable operator’s online public file or in the FCC’s Cable Operations and Licensing System (COALS) database, for cable operators that do not have an online public file."

Only a single notice has to be send to corporate rather than each system, and by e-mail rather than registered mail, though cable operators would have to respond by e-mail confirming receipt of the election.

NAB and NCTA say the compromise “would alleviate the burdens associated with the current notification process and meet the needs of both broadcasters and cable operators.”

ACA points out that the new system would create a new burden on smaller operators who would have to post an e-mail address to an FCC database. For larger systems that means only one e-mail address rather than one for each system. But for smaller operators it is a new requirement.

ACA says to balance the new rules, the FCC should allow cable operators who can't make the deadline for designating an e-mail address and sending confirmations to broadcasters to require broadcasters to continue to file elections by certified mail per current rules in the interim. And if the FCC allows to let DBS providers continue to receive election notices by certified mail, smaller operators should be able to do so as well.

Finally, says ACA, turnabout is fair play. The FCC should adopt comparable flexibility for notices cable operators are required to send to broadcasters by certified mail.

Those cable notices include repositioning or deletion of signals, changes in technical configurations, notices that a cable system is no longer exempt from the network nonduplication or syndicated exclusivity rules (once it has more than 1,000 subs).

The FCC in January ruled that satellite carrier Dish Network was within its rights to deny must-carry to a San Francisco noncommercial TV station because the station used Priority Express Mail rather than certified mail to make its carriage election, signaling that the station's letter was trumped by the letter of the law. That is the letter broadcasters and cable ops agree needs changing.

Cable operators could have a fight on their hands as the FCC prepares to rethink its leased-access rules.

Low-power TV stations have said that will be one of their battlefronts to try to get more respect for their signals — and more carriage from multichannel video programming distributors (MVPDs). The other front is the must-carry/retransmission-consent regime from which lowpower TV outlets are excluded.

“There is case upon case of the cable MVPD denying must-carry claims, and then attempting to force leased-access contracts,” LPTV Spectrum Rights Coalition executive director Mike Gravino told The Wire.

MVPDs are under no obligation to carry LPTVs. But Gravino’s beef goes beyond that. He also called it discrimination that MVPDs offer zero-cost leased-access contracts to networks they want to air, but not to local LPTVs. Look for the coalition to pull out the “gatekeeper” epithet MVPDs have been saddled with by backers of tough net-neutrality rules.

“The MVPD uses public rights of way, and Congress gave them special powers over local content,” Gravino said.

Not looking to engage in an LPTV war, of words or otherwise, NCTA–The Internet & Television Association said: “We commend the FCC for moving to re-examine some of its leased-access rules. The rule changes adopted by the FCC in 2008 have never taken effect, having been both stayed by the courts and disapproved of by OMB. Meanwhile, the video marketplace of competitive multichannel video programming distributors and online video is vastly different from what existed a decade ago, much less from when Congress adopted the leased-access requirements.”

The American Cable Association supports allowing broadcasters to use email rather than certified mail to make their triennial carriage elections, but with some safeguards to make sure the email gets through.

That came in reply comments on the FCC's proposal to allow more electronic delivery of information, like subscriber notices and retrans/must carry elections, to save more trees.

The FCC in January ruled that satellite carrier Dish Network was within its rights to deny must-carry to a San Francisco noncommercial TV station because the station used Priority Express Mail rather than certified mail to make its carriage election, signaling that the station's letter was trumped by the letter of the law. The proposed change to an email election would prevent such TV station snafus, but ACA is looking more to the benefits to smaller cable ops.

"We support email delivery of TV station carriage elections because it can ease the burden on cable operators to process up to hundreds of such notices that they receive from broadcasters," said ACA president Matt Polka. "Use of email to make carriage elections is clearly less burdensome and a reform ACA urges the FCC to adopt."

Related: NAB Tells FCC Retrans Should Be Default Election

ACA supports a proposal by NCTA-The Internet & Television Association and Verizon that would allow TV stations to send their elections to a single email address provided by the MVPD, but ACA wants to tweak that proposal to further minimize burdens on MVPDs, particularly its smaller and midsized operators on whom such burden falls more heavily.

ACA proposes requiring stations to send a copy of the election to an FCC-hosted address that would generate a receipt to both the broadcaster and MVPD, creating an electronic paper trail, as it were.

For smaller systems, it also wants the FCC to allow for posting email addresses in the FCC's Cable Operators and Licensing System (COALS) database, rather than the systems having to set up their own online public folder for receiving carriage notices.

ACA agrees the email system for making elections should be an opt-out regime.

ACA does not support a broadcaster proposal that stations be allowed to post their elections in public files rather than having to send them to MVPDs. It also opposes making retransmission consent rather than must carry the default election if stations fail to make a choice, as some broadcasters have suggested, saying it would "unnecessarily insert uncertainty and confusion into a process that has existed for nearly 25 years."

One of the stations that sold its spectrum in the FCC incentive auction is asking the FCC to allow it to sell the license and some associated assets--including must-carry rights on cable--it retained for another $10 million.

The seller is Hero Licensco, which got $146.6 million for the 6 MHz worth of spectrum used by KBEH, a Spanish-language independent in Los Angeles, which meant the right to broadcast on channel 24.

Hero indicated to the FCC at the time of the auction it would strike a sharing agreement (with KWHY-TV there) if it won, though that was not binding.

Now it has filed an application to sell its remaining assets, including the license and the must-carry rights that the FCC said would go along with it after the auction, to KWHY-TV owners Meruelo Television (MTV), LLC. But just in case the sale does not go through, at the same time both it and Meruelo filed applications to share KWHY-TV's channel, and a local marketing agreement (LMA) that would allow Meruelo to program KBEH.

Also listed as assets are some equipment, rights to the call letters KBEH--to the extent the FCC permits it--trademarks, domain names, the station's Facebook page and Twitter account, copyrights, logos, and the station's public inspection file.

If the $10 million sale does not go through, and the sharing agreement combined with the LMA are approved, Hero will pay $3 million to Meruelo for the privilege of sharing the channel.

If the FCC approves the sale of the spectrumless station, that will boost Hero's take to $156.6 million for getting out of the business, and could trigger other such sales by stations who initially signaled they would be staying in the business.

An FCC spokesperson confirmed that winning bidders still have a licsense until they turn it in, so "to the extent we receive an application for transfer of such licenses we'll consider them as they're filed."

Liberman Broadcasting’s scrappy little television network has picked a fight with the Goliath of U.S. MSOs.

Spanish-language network Estrella TV and No. 1 MSO Comcast are at an impasse regarding must-carry rules set to expire in three key DMAs at midnight (CT) on Feb. 20.

With no resolution in sight, the tussle could result in carriage losses in Houston, Denver and Salt Lake City — a potentially devastating result of a chess match that heated up in early February.

At issue is the continued presence of KETD-Channel 46 in Denver, KZJZ-Channel 44 in Houston and KPNZ-Channel 24 in Salt Lake City on Comcast’s basic-cable lineups in each station’s respective market. The three Estrella TV O&Os are on Comcast thanks to Federal Communications Commission-enforced legislation that requires the cable provider to carry the stations. However, the rules pertaining to the three stations are not permanent, setting the stage for the battle between Liberman and Comcast.

Comcast has said Liberman waged the war. “It is Estrella that has decided to pull its signal from Comcast customers,” the company said in prepared comments. “In fact, we’ve offered to continue to carry their stations under the existing arrangements, which are the same terms we have with other, comparable networks.”

For Liberman, the phrase “comparable networks” is one of its primary points behind the disagreement with Comcast. As Multichannel News reported February 6 (Estrella TV, Comcast Face Carriage Deadline in 3 DMAs), Estrella TV is seeking license-free compensation. The network believes such compensation is warranted given strong ratings in Salt Lake City and Denver.

“It is troubling to see Comcast act irresponsibly by putting its own self-serving business interests ahead of a small minority-owned company, and ahead of Comcast’s Hispanic customers,” Estrella TV chairman José Liberman said.

In its defense, Comcast noted that it is Estrella’s largest distributor, with Comcast lineups in 13 other markets (including Los Angeles and Miami) including Estrella TV as a basic option. “We have been negotiating in good faith for months with Liberman Broadcasting to continue carrying its broadcast signals in these three markets, which represent only 20 percent of our total Estrella distribution,” Comcast said.

Without Comcast, Estrella TV must rely on its deals with AT&T U-verse, Mediacom, Charter and Frontier Communications, as well as station affiliation contracts that allow the network a space on a digital subchannel, as its lone distribution partners. Disgruntled advertisers could thus potentially shy away from deals with Estrella TV or cancel previously forged deals based on higher audience estimates.

To boost its fight, Estrella TV enlisted its core personalities and got Liberman’s top radio hosts to “educate its supporters about the loss of programming choice for Spanish-speaking viewers.” The network also hopes to share the “real” reasons behind the potential loss of Estrella TV from Comcast lineups in Denver, Houston and Salt Lake City via a special website, nopierdasestrellatv.com (don’t lose EstrellaTV).

Liberman hopes these activities will result in a flood of viewer support, including calls to Comcast asking that they keep Estrella TV in the three markets. In Comcast’s view, the volume of calls is likely to be more of a trickle.

“Our customers shouldn’t have to pay millions of dollars for Estrella’s broadcast programming that has very limited appeal,” Comcast argued. “Contrary to Estrella’s assertions, these stations are not widely viewed among Latino audiences. We have reached thousands of agreements with broadcasters and programmers without ever experiencing an interruption of service and are proud to be the nation’s largest cable provider of Spanish-language network packages. We hope to reach a fair agreement with Liberman and avoid service interruptions. So long as Liberman reciprocates our ongoing good faith negotiations, our customers should not lose this programming.”

As of the Presidents’ Day holiday, service interruptions looked imminent, even with the support of U.S. Representative Tony Cárdenas (D-Calif.). Last week he distributed a “dear colleague” letter to other House members asking them to sign letters to the Federal Communications Commission and Department of Justice urging them to ensure that independent programmers — such as Estrella TV — are not harmed by the pending Comcast/Time Warner Cable merger.

Co-signatures for the FCC and DOJ letters were due by Feb. 12; it was not known if Cárdenas, who has been a vocal critic of the Comcast-TWC merger, had attracted any colleagues. In 2014, Cárdenas sought to make the FCC the mediator in a carriage fight between Time Warner Cable and various distributors over finding a non-TWC home for TWC SportsNet LA and the Los Angeles Dodgers baseball club.

With carriage expiration looming later this month, Spanish-language service Estrella TV says it is facing a disconnect with Comcast in three markets.

Liberman Broadcasting-owned Estrella TV said Comcast is forcing it off the air in Houston, Denver and Salt Lake City. Comcast said it is continuing to negotiate with Estrella.

The three stations are on Comcast  via must-carry agreements, which will expire at midnight on Feb. 20. Comcast, which is awating federal approval for its proposed acquisition of Time Warner Cable, carries Estrella in 13 other markets and says it is the station owner that is pushing toward the service disruption.

"Comcast already distributes Estrella TV programming broadly as Estrella’s largest distributor and we have been negotiating in good faith for months with Liberman Broadcasting to continue carrying its broadcast signals in these three markets, which represent only 20 percent of our total Estrella distribution,” said the nation’s largest MSO in a statement. “Most importantly, Comcast is not dropping Estrella – it is Estrella that has decided to pull its signal from Comcast customers. In fact, we’ve offered to continue to carry their stations under the existing arrangements, which are the same terms we have with other, comparable networks.”

Representatives for Estrella, which is available to some 33 million households via distribution deals with AT&T U-verse, Mediacom, Charter and Frontier Communications, as well as station affilation contracts, indicate the network is seeking license fee compensation. They say fees are warranted given its ratings performance in Salt Lake City, where they claim Estrella TV has been a top Nielsen performer among Hispanics 25 to 54 in primetime and has ranked second with that group in Denver.

“This has been a real-life David versus Goliath battle, with our minority-owned company fighting one of the largest companies in America, and armed with a simple message: let the people watch what they want to watch,” said Estrella TV founder and chairman José Liberman. “With Estrella TV now surpassing Telemundo in the Los Angeles market and elsewhere, it is troubling to see Comcast act irresponsibly by putting its own self-serving business interests ahead of a small minority-owned company, and ahead of Comcast’s Hispanic customers.”

To get its message out, Estrella TV, tapping sister radio stations in the three markets in question, has launched a campaign to educate its supporters about the loss of programming choice for Spanish-speaking viewers and the "real" reasons behind Comcast’s decision to force Estrella TV off its systems. The campaign is also utilizing social media to reach Hispanic audiences, encouraging them to contact Comcast to demand that Estrella TV remain on its cable lineup in Houston, Denver, and Salt Lake City.

Estrella TV said a number of Latino celebrities -- Don Cheto, Noel Torres, Tucanes de Tijuana, Arrolladora Banda El Limon, Luis Coronel, Enrique Gratas, Myrka Dellanos, Julion Alvarez, Banda los Recoditos, and Kevin Ortiz -- have joined the initiative, “No Pierdas Estrella TV,” to keep the network on the air.

Comcast countered by saying its customers shouldn’t have to “pay millions of dollars for Estrella’s broadcast programming that has very limited appeal.  Contrary to Estrella’s assertions, these stations are not widely viewed among Latino audiences. We have reached thousands of agreements with broadcasters and programmers without ever experiencing an interruption of service and are proud to be the nation’s largest cable provider of Spanish- language network packages, with a distribution platform that delivers more than 60 Hispanic cable networks on the majority of Comcast Cable systems. We hope to reach a fair agreement with Liberman and avoid service interruptions. So long as Liberman reciprocates our ongoing good faith negotiations, our customers should not lose this programming.”