Retransmission Consent, Network Ownership, and the Programming Decisions of Cable Operators

Using a discrete choice model and a dataset consisting of the 81 most carried cable networks and the programming decisions of a sample of cable franchises, this study found that networks owned by broadcasters are more likely to be carried than are independent networks. The results also show that this advantage decreases with the popularity and the age of the network and that networks owned by cable operators exhibited an even greater likelihood of being carried.