local commercial television station
(1) Local commercial television station (A) In general For purposes of this section, the term “local commercial television station” means any full power television broadcast station, other than a qualified noncommercial educational television station within the meaning of section 535(l)(1) of this title , licensed and operating on a channel regularly assigned to its community by the Commission that, with respect to a particular cable system, is within the same television market as the cable system. (B) Exclusions The term “local commercial television station” shall not include— (i) low power television stations, television translator stations, and passive repeaters which operate pursuant to part 74 of title 47, Code of Federal Regulations , or any successor regulations thereto; (ii) a television broadcast station that would be considered a distant signal under section 111 of title 17 , if such station does not agree to indemnify the cable operator for any increased copyright liability resulting from carriage on the cable system; or (iii) a television broadcast station that does not deliver to the principal headend of a cable system either a signal level of −45dBm for UHF signals or −49dBm for VHF signals at the input terminals of the signal processing equipment, if such station does not agree to be responsible for the costs of delivering to the cable system a signal of good quality or a baseband video signal. (C) Market determinations (i) For purposes of this section, a broadcasting station’s market shall be determined by the Commission by regulation or order using, where available, commercial publications which delineate television markets based on viewing patterns, except that, following a written request, the Commission may, with respect to a particular television broadcast station, include additional communities within its television market or exclude communities from such station’s television market to better effectuate the purposes of this section. In considering such requests, the Commission may determine that particular communities are part of more than one television market. (ii) In considering requests filed pursuant to clause (i), the Commission shall afford particular attention to the value of localism by taking into account such factors as— (I) whether the station, or other stations located in the same area, have been historically carried on the cable system or systems within such community or on the satellite carrier or carriers serving such community; (II) whether the television station provides coverage or other local service to such community; (III) whether modifying the market of the television station would promote consumers’ access to television broadcast station signals that originate in their State of residence; (IV) whether any other television station that is eligible to be carried by a cable system in such community in fulfillment of the requirements of this section provides news coverage of issues of concern to such community or provides carriage or coverage of sporting and other events of interest to the community; and (V) evidence of viewing patterns in households that subscribe and do not subscribe to the services offered by multichannel video programming distributors within the areas served by such multichannel video programming distributors in such community. (iii) A cable operator shall not delete from carriage the signal of a commercial television station during the pendency of any proceeding pursuant to this subparagraph. (iv) Within 120 days after the date on which a request is filed under this subparagraph (or 120 days after February 8, 1996 , if later), the Commission shall grant or deny the request.