Report No. CB-1       CABLE TELEVISION ACTION                April 28, 1994

            WACH(TV), COLUMBIA, SC, DENIED RECONSIDERATION OF
                     "SIGNIFICANTLY VIEWED" DECISION

     The Commission has denied FCVS Communications, licensee of
WACH(TV), Columbia, SC, reconsideration of its earlier decision
that the station could not be considered a "new" station for the
purposes of determining its "significantly viewed" status.

     WACH began operating in 1981, broadcasting largely religious
programming.  In 1988 it was acquired by FCVS which instituted a
new, nonreligious program schedule, concluded an affiliation
agreement with the Fox Broadcasting Co., and increased its power
and antenna height, allowing the station to increase its service
area. 

     In 1972, as part of its comprehensive regulatory scheme for
cable television, the Commission limited the number of distant
signals a cable system could import from outside its market. 
Exemptions to these limits, however, were made both for
significantly viewed signals and for specialty stations.  A signal
is considered significantly viewed if it meets certain designated
minimum viewership levels off-the-air.  A station was considered to
be a specialty station if it programmed a designated minimum amount
of foreign language, religious, or automated programming.  When the
Commission deleted its distant signal carriage limitations in 1982,
it also deleted its rule defining a specialty station.  

     In 1990, WACH filed a petition for special relief with the
Commission, contending that in view of both the station's technical
upgrades and the station's switch to broadcasting as a "general
market independent station" instead of as a specialty station, WACH
should be considered a "new" station for purposes of determining
its status as significantly viewed.  Consideration as a "new"
station, WACH noted, would allow it to demonstrate its status as
significantly viewed utilizing current county-wide data, rather
than current community-specific data or county-wide data from the
period 1981-1984, the station's first three years of operation.


                                  (over)



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     The Commission staff denied WACH's request, finding that
neither WACH's technical improvements nor its change in program
content was of sufficient magnitude to enable it to be considered
a "new" station.

     The Commission upheld this decision on review and WACH has now
asked for reconsideration.

     In denying reconsideration, the Commission said WACH had
failed to demonstrate any manifest error or omission so material as
to warrant a change of its earlier decision, nor had WACH raised
any new factor or arguments that would cause the FCC to depart from
its earlier conclusions.  The Commission noted that the Cable Act
was enacted on October 5, 1992, well over four months before the
Commission's most recent decision in this case and WACH presented
no reason that it could not have timely raised this as an issue
prior to Commission review.  The Commission said nothing in the
Cable Act required it to find that technical improvements of the
type involved here qualify a station for special relief as a "new"
station, or that the Commission should involve itself in
determining the relative substantiality of changes in program
content.

     Action by the Commission April 19, 1994, by Memorandum Opinion
and Order (FCC 94-92).  Chairman Hundt, Commissioners Quello and
Barrett. 

                                  - FCC -
     
 News Media contact: Rosemary Kimball at (202) 632-5050.
 Cable Services Bureau contact: Barrett L. Brick at (202) 416-0868.