The FCC should grant Chesapeake Television a waiver...
The FCC should grant Chesapeake Television a waiver of the “significantly viewed” exception to the agency’s rules for several communities in Maryland over the objections of Anne Arundel County, Fox and a local cable provider, said Chesapeake in a filing…
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Thursday (http://bit.ly/16NKo4t). Chesapeake applied for the waiver in July (CD July 8 p13) for its Fox affiliate WBFF-TV Baltimore for its broadcasts to Columbia, Glen Burnie and Ellicott City -- where it said WTTG Washington no longer meets the significantly-viewed criteria. Opposition filings from Fox (http://bit.ly/14P1WOQ), Anne Arundel County (http://bit.ly/13nJoHj) and cable provider Broadstripe (http://bit.ly/1cGeDkQ) all attacked Chesapeake for using “dated” Nielsen data from 2007 and 2008, said the broadcaster. Chesapeake’s recent filing said that those are the most recent years for which data were available. Although the opposition filings said WTTG’s low over-the-air viewership doesn’t reflect its large audience on cable, no ratings data supporting the argument was submitted, said Chesapeake. The broadcaster also disputed the argument that WTTG’s Washington-based content is more relevant to residents of the Baltimore-Washington area than WBFF’s would be. “The FCC cannot base a ruling on general feelings of comity and feel-good notions of ’ties’ between DC and Baltimore,” said Chesapeake. “Under FCC precedent, the actual ratings data provided by Nielsen must prevail."