In the TV market where I live--New York State's Capital Region--our NBC station, WNYT, has the syndication rights to Friends. Instead of running two different episodes per weekday, as other stations with the syndication rights to Friends do, they only run the early-evening episode at 7:30 pm. As part of basic cable, I get NYC's WB station, channel 11. They run Friends at 7 pm and 11:00 pm on weekdays. However, because WNYT has the syndication rights to the show--regardless of whether they even run all the episodes they COULD run--channel 11's broadcast of the show gets "blacked out" and replaced by an infomercial.
I can't see how this is fair. It seems to me an abuse of FCC rules. I think WYNT should either have to air both episodes of Friends, or they shouldn't be allowed to have the 11 pm episode blacked out on channel 11.
I live in PA and get the WB11 and the same exact thing happenes to me. I don't get the latter night episode, instead i get the tv guide channel when there are already about 5 tv channels.
"IsabellaOfLaMer" wrote in message news:[email]...
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Grrr--Don't you hate that? I e-mailed the station that has the syndication rights in our area, and received a reply citing the high price they pay for the program. But they don't run the late episodes, so (a) they're wasting money by only running half the episodes and (b) they're punishing viewers who have the misfortune to live in their market. Who loses? The viewers. I wish the FCC would take a more pro-consumer attitude and specify that stations can't do this. Here's what the FCC's rules DO say:
"The Federal Communication Commission's program exclusivity rules prescribe the manner in which exclusive rights to exhibit programming may be obtained and exercised. The rules are designed to enable broadcasters to take ad- vantage of a valuable and legitimate business practice-showing programs on an exclusive basis. Current network non-duplication rules allow a local television broadcast station to exercise exclusivity against cable carriage of identical network programming imported from a distant television market. A cable television system operator may place network programming from the local market station on the channel assigned to the distant market station as well. You should not, however, be deprived of viewing network programming.
"The syndicated program exclusivity rules generally work in the same manner as the network non-duplication rules. However, the syndicated programming need not be simultaneously broadcast in order to be subjected to deletion at the request of the local station that holds the exclusive right to the syndicated programming in your television market. Where a syndicated program is deleted, the cable television system operator has the option of sub- stituting other programming rather than leaving the channel of the distant station dark."
Note that they say "You should not, however, be deprived of viewing network programming." This is exactly what is happening here.