TV Station Assigned to New DMA Can Only Elect Satellite Carriage in One DMA (and the County Where it is Licensed)

Television station WGBP-TV was reassigned by Nielsen from the Designated Market Area (DMA) where its community of license is located (Columbus (GA)-Opelika) to the Atlanta DMA and tried to elect satellite carriage throughout both DMAs simultaneously.  In its September 29, 2026 Memorandum Opinion & Order the Commission granted DISH Network’s Application for Review of a Media Bureau order that had granted WGBP’s carriage complaint that sought mandatory carriage for WGBP throughout both its Nielsen-assigned DMA, Atlanta, and the DMA where its community of license is located.

The Satellite Home Viewer Improvement Act of 1999 (SHVIA) provides that a satellite carrier that uses the statutory copyright license to retransmit at least one television broadcast station signal into a local market is required to “carry upon request the signals of all television broadcast stations located within that local market.” SHVIA defines “Local Market” as “the designated market area in which a station is located” and “the county in which the station’s community of license is located.”

The Commission’s rules provide the term “local market” as it is used for satellite carriage purposes “includes all counties within a market, as well as the home county of the television station in that county.” Reading this, the Media Bureau found that the station was located in two markets – its Nielsen-assigned DMA and, as one of the counties in its previous DMA – and therefore the station could simultaneously elect mandatory carriage throughout both DMAs. In overturning the Media Bureau’s decision, the Commission stated that nothing in SHVIA or its rules state that a station can elect mandatory carriage in two DMAs and that the station has the flexibility to “choose” whether to assert must-carry rights in (1) ‘its Nielsen-assigned DMA plus the county where its community of license is located, or (2) ‘the entire DMA where its community of license is located’.”