Carriage disputes

A carriage dispute is a disagreement over the right to "carry", that is, retransmit, a broadcaster's signal. Carriage disputes first occurred between broadcasters and cable companies and now include direct broadcast satellite and other multichannel video programming distributors.

These disputes often involve financial compensation – what the distributor pays the television station or network for the right to carry the signal – as well as what channels the distributor is permitted or required to retransmit and how the distributor offers those channels to its subscribers. While most carriage disputes are resolved without controversy or notice, others have involved programming blackouts, both threatened and real, as well as strident public relations campaigns. Carriage disputes have occurred both in the United States and internationally.

The history of carriage disputes can be seen as having two distinct circumstances: the first involving over-the-air broadcasters, whose signals can be received with an antenna; the second involving broadcasters transmitting via cable, satellite or other means—but not over the air. In the United States, the first led to a quagmire of legal disputes involving the Federal Communications Commission and the courts, shifting regulations, and questions over copyright law – all revolving around the basic question of whether a carrier has an inherent right to retransmit an over-the-air signal. Broadcasters accused carriers of being "leeches", making money off of programming content that they contributed nothing to produce. Carriers countered that their role was largely passive, because they were merely redistributing freely available signals more widely. By contrast, carriage disputes involving broadcasters who do not use the public airwaves, while representing many high-profile encounters, have raised fewer legal and policy questions, playing out largely at the negotiation table and in the court of public opinion.

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