MVPD Notice, Section 73.3700

On June 2, 2014 the Commission released a rulemaking titled “Expanding the Economic and Innovation Opportunities of Spectrum Through Incentive Auctions,” GN Docket 12-268, Report and Order, FCC 14-50, 29 FCC Rcd 6567 (2014) which adopted rules for holding an Incentive Auction. Full power and Class A stations will be reassigned to a new channel via the repacking process following the auction. Other stations will submit winning bids to relinquish their channels, enter into channel sharing agreements (and move to the channel of the station they are sharing with); or to move from high-VHF to low-VHF channels or from UHF to high-VHF or low-VHF. Each of these stations are required to notify multichannel video programming providers (“MVPD”) that carry the station of the fact that the station will be changing channels or terminating operations. Section 73.3700 requires that full power and Class A television stations assigned a new channel in the incentive auction repacking, relinquishing their channel or moving to a new channel as a result of a winning bid in the auction, notify MVPDs of their termination of operations or change in channel. On March 23, 2017, the Commission adopted the Report and Order, Channel Sharing by Full Power and Class A Stations Outside the Broadcast Television Spectrum Incentive Auction Context, GN Docket No. 12-268, MB Docket No. 03-185, MB Docket No. 15-137, FCC 17-29 (“Report and Order”). This document approved channel sharing outside of the incentive auction context between full power, Class A, Low Power Television (LPTV) and TV translator stations. Channel sharing stations also must notify MVPDs of the fact that stations will be terminating operations on one channel to share another station’s channel. Section 73.3800, Full Power Television Channel Sharing Outside the Incentive Auction, Section 73.6028 Class A Television Channel Sharing Outside the Incentive Auction and Section 74.799 Low Power Television and TV Translator Channel Sharing require that stations seeking to channel share outside of the incentive auction provide notification to MVPDs of the fact that the station will be terminating operations on one channel to share another station’s channel.

The latest form for MVPD Notice, Section 73.3700 expires 2023-04-30 and can be found here.

MVPD Notice

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