Cite as: 512 U. S. 622 (1994)
Opinion of the Court
carry the signals of three commercial broadcast stations. § 534(b)(1)(A).2
If there are fewer broadcasters requesting carriage than slots made available under the Act, the cable operator is obligated to carry only those broadcasters who make the request. If, however, there are more requesting broadcast stations than slots available, the cable operator is permitted to choose which of these stations it will carry. § 534(b)(2).3 The broadcast signals carried under this provision must be transmitted on a continuous, uninterrupted basis, § 534(b)(3), and must be placed in the same numerical channel position as when broadcast over the air, § 534(b)(6). Further, subject to a few exceptions, a cable operator may not charge a fee for carrying broadcast signals in fulfillment of its must-carry obligations. § 534(b)(10).
Section 5 of the Act imposes similar requirements regarding the carriage of local public broadcast television stations,
2 If there are not enough local full power commercial broadcast stations to fill the one-third allotment, a cable system with up to 35 active channels must carry one qualified low power station and an operator with more than 35 channels must carry two of them. See § 534(c)(1); see also § 534(h)(2) (defining "qualified low power station"). Low power television stations are small broadcast entities that transmit over a limited geographic range. They are licensed on a secondary basis and are permitted to operate only if they do not interfere with the signals of full power broadcast stations.
3 Cable systems are not required to carry the signal of any local commercial television station that "substantially duplicates" the signal of any other broadcast station carried on the system. § 534(b)(5); see also In re Implementation of the Cable Television Consumer Protection and Competition Act of 1992 (Broadcast Signal Carriage Issues), No. 92-259, Mar. 29, 1993, ¶ 19 (defining "substantial duplication" as a 50 percent overlap in programming). Nor are they required to carry the signals of more than one station affiliated with each national broadcast network. If the cable operator does choose to carry broadcast stations with duplicative programming, however, the system is credited with those stations for purposes of its must-carry obligations. § 534(b)(5).
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