Leased access is airtime that the

Federal Communications Commission The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) is an independent agency of the United States federal government that regulates communications by radio, television, wire, satellite, and cable across the United States. The FCC maintains jurisdi ...

(FCC) mandates must be provided by cable operators (such as Comcast Xfinity and

Charter Spectrum Spectrum is a trade name of Charter Communications, used to market consumer and commercial cable television, internet, telephone, and wireless services provided by the company. The brand was first introduced in 2014; prior to that, these serv ...

) for use by independent cable programmers and producers who are not owned by the operators. Leased access airtime may be purchased on

specialty channel A specialty channel (also known in the United States as a cable channel or cable network) can be a commercial broadcasting or non-commercial television channel which consists of television programming focused on a single genre, subject or targete ...

s by individuals or groups with E&O insurance for the purposes of airing

television program Television, sometimes shortened to TV, is a telecommunication medium for transmitting moving images and sound. The term can refer to a television set, or the medium of television transmission. Television is a mass medium for advertising ...

ming content, usually

local programming The terms local programme, local programming, local content or local television refers to a television program made by a television station or independent television producer for broadcast only within the station's transmission area or televisi ...

. Some low-power television stations, often affiliated with

The WB The WB Television Network (for Warner Bros., or the "Frog Network", for its former mascot, Michigan J. Frog) was an American television network launched on broadcast television on January 11, 1995, as a joint venture between the Warner Bros. ...

and UPN, could only air their programming on a cable system through the purchase of leased access time, as they were not covered by the FCC's

must-carry In cable television, governments apply a must-carry regulation stating that locally licensed television stations must be carried on a cable provider's system. North America Canada Under current CRTC regulations, the lowest tier of service on ...

regulations to require their stations to be carried; often this came with no built-in promotion by a cable system which often regarded their other programming as sub-standard as the reason for traditional carriage refusal, or any call out of the programming carried in their channel lineups (where they were listed only as 'paid' or 'leased access' and with no program listings), meaning the station would have to find alternate means to promote their cable carriage. The purchase of leased access for low-power stations has significantly been reduced as those stations are now often owned by a larger full-power sister station which require that station's carriage as a condition in retransmission consent negotiations for the full-power station's (or often a sister national pay-TV network's) carriage, or as part of that station's

digital subchannel In broadcasting, digital subchannels are a method of transmitting more than one independent program stream simultaneously from the same digital radio or television station on the same radio frequency channel. This is done by using data compressi ...

lineup. The prices for leased access are subject to a maximum set by an FCC formula and therefore in theory cannot be manipulated by cable companies. Cable companies, however, can "manipulate" prices through lobbying the FCC. Indeed, in 1997, the FCC set maximum prices based on an "average implicit fee" formula which set the prices considered by cable programmers to be remarkably high. Lower prices would encourage increased usage of leased access by independent programmers. In practice, this has meant in markets without a need for leased access and whose needs can be fulfilled by

public, educational, and government access Public-access television is traditionally a form of non-commercial mass media where the general public can create content television programming which is narrowcast through cable television specialty channels. Public-access television was cre ...

/PEG or public-access television channels (which provide their facilities at no to minimum cost), a channel's time is usually bought out ''en masse'' by networks and entities who only air paid programming or

televangelism Televangelism ( tele- "distance" and " evangelism," meaning " ministry," sometimes called teleministry) is the use of media, specifically radio and television, to communicate Christianity. Televangelists are ministers, whether official or self ...

on a full-time basis, often merely carrying a national network feed with no local deviation, though still having no guide listings provided unless so paid for by the network, allowing a provider to profit off a steadier source of revenue than from disparate programmers and producers. This type of programming direction has only increased as the former purchasers of leased access have moved on to more reasonable online video options, with both better promotional opportunities and none of the issues, complications, and regulations which have long saddled leased access channels and time slots.

See also