Section 74.800, Channel Sharing Agreement

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, LPTV and TV translator stations. Sections 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 73.799, Low Power Television and TV Translator Channel Sharing require that stations seeking to channel share outside of the incentive auction provide a copy of their “CSA” to the Commission for review. In addition, we note that revisions to this information collection that resulted from the provisions adopted in the FCC 15-175 that approved channel sharing between LPTV and TV translator stations were already approved under this collection and have not changed. They are as follows: There is no specified format for the CSA but it must contain provisions covering: a. Access to facilities, including whether each licensee will have unrestrained access to the shared transmission facilities; b. Allocation of bandwidth within the shared channel; c. Operation, maintenance, repair, and modification of facilities, including a list of all relevant equipment, a description of each party's financial obligations, and any relevant notice provisions; d. Transfer/assignment of a shared license, including the ability of a new licensee to assume the existing CSA; e. Termination of the license of a party to the CSA, including reversion of spectrum usage rights to the remaining parties to the CSA and f. A provision affirming compliance with the channel sharing requirements in the rules including a provision requiring that each channel sharing licensee shall retain spectrum usage rights adequate to ensure a sufficient amount of the shared channel capacity to allow it to provide at least one Standard Definition (SD) program stream at all times.

The latest form for Section 74.800, Channel Sharing Agreement expires 2023-04-30 and can be found here.

Channel Sharing Agreements

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