Broadcasters have two choices with the cable companies: Retransmission Consent or Must Carry.
Must Carry is just that...the cable company must carry them on there "basic" tier service. This is almost historic these days. Cable companies came into existence to relay, by copper rather than ether, the weak signals of broadcast stations in the early days. While cable companies don't use the RF spectrum, they do have access to telephone poles and other right-of-ways that many companies do not. In exchange, under this option, they must carry all local broadcast signals that do not opt for Retransmission Consent. The FCC, under heavy lobbying from the NCTA, ruled that cable companies must carry only one of the broadcasters signals. Since there is no real technical standard for DTV over cable and owing to the small penetration of DTV sets (when compared to penetration of analog sets), very few broadcasters who operate NTSC stations have opted for Must Carry of DTV signals.
Under Retransmission Consent, the broadcaster can negotiate something of value in exchange for the cable company retransmitting the station to it's subscribers. However, the cable company is not required to submit to the demands of the broadcaster in this case. If an impasse is reached the cable company can opt not to carry the television station on it's system. This has happened in various markets across the country. The cable company usually wins out because the broadcaster can't afford not to be carried when the competing stations are still on the cable systems as a majority of homes do not have off-air receive capabilities.
There are only a few broadcasters who have negotiated an agreement with their local cable company. The ones I know about have done this as a stand alone agreement outside the Retranmission Consent or Must Carry edicts.
- Peter Dennant