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 Federal  Communications  Commission  FCC  04-  176 
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 DISSENTING  STATEMENT  OF  COMMISSIONER  MICHAEL  J.  COPPS 
 Re:  TCI  Cablevision  of  New  Mexico,  Inc.,  Memorandum  Opinion  and  Order  (CSR  5654-  A);  TCI  Cablevision  of  New  Mexico,  Inc.,  Memorandum  Opinion  and  Order  (CSR  5623-  A,  CSR  5598-  M); 
 and  Comcast  Cablevision  of  New  Mexico,  Inc.,  Memorandum  Opinion  and  Order  (CSR  5508-  A,  CSR  5486-  M) 


 I  respectfully  dissent  from  the  decision  to  affirm  the  Bureau’s  conclusion  that  television  station  KRPV  is  not  entitled  to  carriage  on  certain  cable  systems.  KRPV  is  licensed  to  Prime  Time  Christian 
 Broadcasting  and  carries  24-  hour  a  day  religious  programming,  including  Spanish-  language  programming. 


 Although  KRPV  broadcasts  from  Roswell,  New  Mexico,  which  is  as  much  as  200  miles  from  the  cable  systems’  communities,  it  is  in  the  same  DMA,  which  generally  provides  KRPV  with  must  carry 
 rights  on  the  cable  systems.  The  Commission,  however,  has  authority  under  the  statute  to  exclude  communities  from  a  television  station’s  market  to  better  effectuate  the  purposes  of  the  must  carry  statute. 
 In  making  this  determination,  Congress  directed  the  Commission  to  focus  on  the  “value  of  localism”  and  examine,  among  other  things,  whether  the  station  provides  local  service  to  the  community. 


 In  this  instance,  the  Bureau  held  that  KRPV  does  not  satisfy  any  of  the  statutory  criteria.  Yet,  the  Bureau’s  decision  does  not  adequately  take  into  account  that  specialty  stations,  such  as  those  with 
 religious  or  non-  English  programming,  may  not  have  an  appreciable  audience  share  or  historic  carriage  due  to  the  specialized  nature  of  its  programming.  The  Bureau  similarly  dismisses,  without  adequate 
 analysis,  KRPV’s  argument  that  it  provides  programming  to  the  communities  in  question  by  offering  regular  daily  segments  for  all  local  churches  to  have  television  access  and  by  airing  a  talk  show  hosted  by 
 a  citizen  of  one  of  the  cable  communities. 
 I  also  take  this  opportunity  to  note  an  anomaly  between  this  decision  and  the  Commission’s  June  2003  media  ownership  decision.  Today’s  decision  makes  much  of  the  fact  that  the  station  is 
 geographically  distant  from  the  cable  communities  and  that  citizens  in  the  relevant  communities  cannot  receive  the  over-  the-  air  signal  of  KRPV.  Today,  the  majority  affirms  that  consumers  will  also  not  receive 
 this  station  through  their  cable  system.  But,  under  our  media  consolidation  decision,  KRPV  would  have  counted  as  a  local  station  for  evaluating  mergers.  So,  for  example,  if  two  television  stations  in 
 Albuquerque,  Santa  Fe  or  any  of  these  other  communities  sought  to  merge,  this  Roswell  station  would  have  counted  as  another  voice  in  the  market.  It  is  troubling  that  the  Commission  put  in  place  rules  under 
 which  KRPV  is  not  part  of  the  market  for  cable  carriage  purposes,  but  is  part  of  the  market  when  it  comes  to  allowing  more  media  consolidation.  I  hope  the  Commission  would  reexamine  this  anomaly  when  it 
 considers  the  media  ownership  rules. 
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