Media Bureau OK's Cox Market Modification for Delaware's WMDE
CoxCom received FCC Media Bureau approval of a market modification for WMDE Dover, Delaware, which now excludes the Virginia communities served by Cox's cable system. The market modification order posted Wednesday in docket 15-120 removes Fairfax County -- which is…
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100 miles from Dover -- from WMDE's must-carry market. The market modification application submitted in May (see 1505210019) followed Nielsen reassigning WMDE -- but not Dover itself -- to the Washington, D.C., (Hagerstown, Maryland) designated market area (DMA), which covers four states and the District of Columbia. WMDE licensee Western Pacific Broadcast had opposed the market modification, arguing it was carried on other systems throughout Fairfax County and the District DMA. In its ruling, the bureau said that while Verizon, Comcast and Dish Network briefly carried WMDE in Fairfax County under the must-carry mandate, that doesn't satisfy the historic carriage factor and there is no evidence that any multichannel video programming distributor serving the county carries any other stations licensed to Dover, to Delaware or to adjacent eastern Maryland.