Preserving Free Television? Some Empirical Evidence on the Efficacy of Must-Carry

In March 1997, the Supreme Court upheld the must-carry provisions of the 1992 Cable Act on the grounds that they insured the survival of the “free” over-the-air television. This article empirically evaluates the efficacy of must-carry in preserving free television and shows that non-network broadcast stations were able to increase viewer share after must-carry, lending support to the preservation rationale. The empirical analysis also indicates that this increase came exclusively from network stations, not cable programming