When first passed in 1972, the must-carry rules required that cable companies provide channels for all local broadcasters within a 60-mile (later changed to 50-mile) radius of the cable company’s service area. In the mid-1980s, various cable companies, including superstation WTBS owner Turner Broadcasting, brought suit against the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), claiming that the rules were unconstitutional. In 1985 and 1987, the U.S. Court of Appeals found that must-carry rules did, indeed, violate the First Amendment. From then until 1992, stations were only required to carry public television signals and provide subscribers with an option for an A/B switch to allow access to local broadcast signals. This change bode particularly ill for small UHF (ultrahigh frequency) stations, whose cable carriers could replace them with stronger, more desirable superstations.

The 1992 Communications Act, while still requiring carriage of local commercial and public stations, allowed cable companies to drop redundant carriage of signals, where stations within the service area duplicated programming (e.g., two stations within a 50-mile radius carrying the same network or two college public broadcasting stations both carrying the Public Broad- casting Service [PBS]). More con fusion resulted when, in October 1994, the FCC gave stations a choice of being carried under the must-carry rules or under a new regulation requiring cable companies to obtain re- transmission consent before carrying a broadcast signal. The retransmission consent ruling gave desirable local stations increased power to negotiate the terms of carriage the cable company would provide, including channel preference.

Must-carry rules were still in effect on passage of the 1996 Telecommunications Act—and still being challenged by cable companies. None of the must-carry rules affects cable retransmission of FM radio signals.