(a) Exclusive affiliation of station. No license shall be granted to a television broadcast station having any contract, arrangement, or understanding, express or implied, with a network organization under which the station is prevented or hindered from, or penalized for, broadcasting the programs of any other network organization. (The term “network organization” as used in this section includes national and regional network organizations. See ch. VII, J, of Report on Chain Broadcasting.)

(b) Territorial exclusively. No license shall be granted to a television broadcast station having any contract, arrangement, or understanding, express or implied, with a network organization which prevents or hinders another broadcast station located in the same community from broadcasting the network's programs not taken by the former station, or which prevents or hinders another broadcast station located in a different community from broadcasting any program of the network organization. This section shall not be construed to prohibit any contract, arrangement, or understanding between a station and a network organization pursuant to which the station is granted the first call in its community upon the programs of the network organization. As employed in this paragraph, the term “community” is defined as the community specified in the instrument of authorization as the location of the station.

(c) [Reserved]

(d) Station commitment of broadcast time. No license shall be granted to a television broadcast station having any contract, arrangement, or understanding, express or implied, with any network organization, which provides for optioning of the station's time to the network organization, or which has the same restraining effect as time optioning. As used in this section, time optioning is any contract, arrangement, or understanding, express or implied, between a station and a network organization which prevents or hinders the station from scheduling programs before the network agrees to utilize the time during which such programs are scheduled, or which requires the station to clear time already scheduled when the network organization seeks to utilize the time.

(e) Right to reject programs. No license shall be granted to a television broadcast station having any contract, arrangement, or understanding, express or implied, with a network organization which, with respect to programs offered or already contracted for pursuant to an affiliation contract, prevents or hinders the station from:

(1) Rejecting or refusing network programs which the station reasonably believes to be unsatisfactory or unsuitable or contrary to the public interest, or

(2) Substituting a program which, in the station's opinion, is of greater local or national importance.

(f) [Reserved]

(g) Dual network operation. A television broadcast station may affiliate with a person or entity that maintains two or more networks of television broadcast stations unless such dual or multiple networks are composed of two or more persons or entities that, on February 8, 1996, were “networks” as defined in §73.3613(a)(1) of the Commission's regulations (that is, ABC, CBS, Fox, and NBC).

(h) Control by networks of station rates. No license shall be granted to a television broadcast station having any contract, arrangement, or understanding, express or implied, with a network organization under which the station is prevented or hindered from, or penalized for, fixing or altering its rates for the sale of broadcast time for other than the network's programs.

(i) No license shall be granted to a television broadcast station which is represented for the sale of non-network time by a network organization or by an organization directly or indirectly controlled by or under common control with a network organization, if the station has any contract, arrangement or understanding, express or implied, which provides for the affiliation of the station with such network organization: Provided, however, That this rule shall not be applicable to stations licensed to a network organization or to a subsidiary of a network organization.

(j)-(l) [Reserved]

(m) Territorial exclusivity in non-network arrangements.

(1) No television station shall enter into any contract, arrangement, or understanding, expressed or implied; with a non-network program producer, distributor, or supplier, or other person; which prevents or hinders another television station located in a community over 56.3 kilometers (35 miles) away, as determined by the reference points contained in §76.53 of this chapter, (if reference points for a community are not listed in §76.53, the location of the main post office will be used) from broadcasting any program purchased by the former station from such non-network program producer, distributor, supplier, or other person, except that a television station may secure exclusivity against a television station licensed to another designated community in a hyphenated market specified in the market listing as contained in §76.51 of this chapter for those 100 markets listed, and for markets not listed in §76.51 of this chapter, the listing as contained in the Nielsen Media Research DMA Rankings for the most recent year at the time that the exclusivity contract, arrangement or understanding is complete under practices of the industry. As used in this paragraph, the term “community” is defined as the community specified in the instrument of authorization as the location of the station.

(2) Notwithstanding paragraph (m)(1) of this section, a television station may enter into a contract, arrangement, or understanding with a producer, supplier, or distributor of a non-network program if that contract, arrangement, or understanding provides that the broadcast station has exclusive national rights such that no other television station in the United States may broadcast the program.

(Sec. 5, 48 Stat. 1068 (47 U.S.C. 155))

[28 FR 13660, Dec. 14, 1963]