Tv Stations

How would you like to turn on your $30-a-month cable TV service one day this fall and find out that you can no longer see "Seinfeld," "Roseanne" or "60 Minutes"?How would you feel if you found out that because you do have cable you won't be able to watch the NBA playoffs or the Super Bowl?The terms "retransmission consent" and "must-carry" probably don't mean much to most TV viewers today. But for the two biggest factions in the TV industry, today is the first day of the rest of their lives under the new Cable TV Act.Retransmission consent is part of the Cable TV Act passed by Congress last fall.

Commercial TV stations in Maryland and Washington barely get a passing grade when it comes to children's programming, according to a "report card" released yesterday by the Maryland Campaign for Kids' TV. The 13 monitored TV stations received an overall grade of D+."The stations in Maryland aren't doing a very good job," said campaign director Charlene Hughins Uhl. "Most of the stations had virtually nothing of quality for children on the air."The Maryland Campaign for Kids' TV is a project of two statewide organizations, Advocates for Children & Youth and Ready At Five, in association with a Washington-based national organization, the Center for Media Education.

WASHINGTON - Opponents of greater media concentration expressed outrage yesterday over a congressional maneuver that could allow more consolidation in the television industry. The move late Monday was a "total violation" of protocol, Sen. Ernest F. Hollings, a South Carolina Democrat, said in a statement. White House officials and Republican congressional leaders "went into a closet, met with themselves, and announced a `compromise"' on how many TV stations one company could own, he said.

The rapidly expanding Sinclair Broadcast Group Inc., based in Baltimore, has bought the assets of an Alabama television station for an undisclosed price, the company announced yesterday.Sinclair, which owns Baltimore's Channel 45, has purchased the building and other assets of WDBB-TV in Tuscaloosa, Ala., said David D. Smith, Sinclair's president.The Baltimore-based broadcast group also has entered into a management agreement to operate the license of WDBB-TV, which is currently affiliated with Fox Broadcasting.

WASHINGTON -- The Supreme Court, finally taking up an issue it has passed over repeatedly for 14 years, agreed yesterday to clarify the constitutional right of most public television stations to choose what they put on the air.In a case that could affect the programming of the 250 public TV PTC stations that are owned and operated by state governments, the court said it would use an Arkansas case to settle how far the First Amendment goes to protect government...

GALLOPING DEREGULATION of telecommunications often promises more consumer benefit than it delivers. Cable television is an example. While expanding the choices of channels that produce profits, the cable operator seeks to limit which local broadcast TV stations it must carry.The federal law that forces cable systems to carry local broadcast TV station signals (which most people used to receive by rooftop antenna or rabbit-ears on the set) is before the Supreme Court for review again this year, after being upheld twice by a federal appeals panel.

WASHINGTON -- Public television stations run by state and local governments are free to stage political debates that exclude those candidates the broadcasters think have no real chance of winning, the Supreme Court ruled yesterday.Candidates cannot be left out because of the views they hold or platforms they propose, but those "with little popular support" need not be invited, the court declared. The ruling appeared to be a boon to the political programming choices of government broadcasters and a gain for the dominant Democrats and Republicans.

Sinclair Broadcast Group Inc., one of the nation's largest television broadcasting companies, will be allowed to maintain control of its stations while it fights Federal Communications Commission rules that would have forced it to sell at least four TV outlets by Aug. 6, the company announced yesterday. The Cockeysville company was granted a stay by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia, halting implementation of FCC rules that bar broadcasters from owning or operating more than one station in markets that contain eight or fewer stations.

Aiming to halt what it called an "unwarranted" 46 percent drop in its stock price, Sinclair Broadcast Group Inc. said yesterday that it would buy back as much as $50 million of its common stock.The Baltimore-based chain of independent television stations has seen its share price plunge from a high of $31 on Sept. 8 to a new low of $16.25 Thursday -- $4.75 less than the initial offering price of $21 in June, when it sold 5 million shares for $105 million. The stock closed yesterday at $16.75.

WASHINGTON -- Federal regulators voted yesterday, as expected, to give digital airwave licenses to the nation's 1,600 TV stations so they can bring sharper, movie-quality pictures to the 10 biggest U.S. markets by Christmas 1998.The Federal Communications Commission's decision comes as Republican Sen. John McCain, who chairs the Senate committee that has jurisdiction over telecommunications policy, some other lawmakers and groups like Common Cause are complaining that the plan amounts to a $70 billion handout.