Sec. 74.931  Purpose and permissible service.

    (a)(1) Instructional television fixed stations are intended 
primarily to provide a formal educational and cultural development in 
aural and visual form, to students enrolled in accredited public and 
private schools, colleges and universities. Authorized instructional 
television fixed station channels must be used to transmit formal 
educational programming offered for credit to enrolled students of 
accredited schools, with limited exceptions as set forth in

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paragraph (e)(9) of this section and Secs. 74.990 through 74.992.
    (2) All applicants that do not list accredited schools as receive 
sites must name the school(s) and the degree(s) or diploma(s) for which 
the formal programming will be offered and describe the administration 
of the course(s). They must submit documentation, written or signed by 
the authorities responsible for the schools' curricula, verifying each 
of these points.
    (b) Such stations may also be used for the additional purpose of 
transmitting other visual and aural educational, instructional and 
cultural material to selected receiving locations, including in-service 
training and instruction in special skills and safety programs, 
extension of professional training, informing persons and groups engaged 
in professional and technical activities of current developments in 
their particular fields, and other similar endeavors.
    (c) During periods when the circuits provided by these stations are 
not being used for the transmission of instructional and cultural 
material, they may be used for the transmission of material directly 
related to the administrative activities of the licensee such as the 
holding of conferences with personnel, distribution of reports and 
assignments, exchange of data and statistics, and other similar uses. 
Stations will not be licensed in this service solely for the 
transmission of administrative traffic.
    (d) Stations may be licensed in this service as originating or relay 
stations to interconnect instructional television fixed stations in 
adjacent areas, to deliver instructional and cultural material to, and 
obtain such material from, commercial and noncommercial educational 
television broadcast stations for use on the instructional television 
fixed system, and to deliver instructional and cultural material to, and 
obtain such material from, nearby terminals or connection points of 
closed circuit educational television systems employing wired 
distribution systems or radio facilities authorized under other parts of 
this chapter, or to deliver instructional and cultural material to any 
CATV system serving a receiving site or sites which would be eligible 
for direct reception of ITFS signals under the provisions of paragraphs 
(a) and (b) of this section.
    (e) A licensee may use excess capacity on each channel to transmit 
material other than the ITFS subject matter specified in paragraphs (a), 
(b), (c), and (d) of this section subject to the following conditions:
    (1) If the time or capacity leased is not to be used for ``wireless 
cable'' operations, the licensee must preserve at least 40 hours per 
week, including at least 6 hours per weekday (Monday through Friday), 
excluding holidays and vacation days, for ITFS purposes on that channel. 
The 40-hour preservation may consist of airtime strictly reserved for 
ITFS use and not used for non-ITFS programming, or of time used for non-
ITFS programming but subject to ready recapture by the licensee for ITFS 
use with no economic or operational detriment of the licensee. At least 
20 hours per week of the preserved time on each channel must be used for 
ITFS programming, including at least 3 hours per weekday, excluding 
holidays and vacation days, except as provided in paragraph (e)(3) of 
this section. Only ITFS programming and preserved airtime scheduled 
between 8 a.m. and 10 p.m. Monday through Saturday, will qualify to meet 
these requirements.
    (2) If the time or capacity leased is to be used for ``wireless 
cable'' operations, before leasing excess capacity on any one channel, 
the licensee must provide at least 20 hours per week of ITFS programming 
on that channel, except as provided in paragraph (e)(3) of this section. 
All hours not used for ITFS programming may be leased to a ``wireless 
cable'' operator. An additional 20 hours per week per channel must be 
reserved for recapture by the ITFS licensee for its ITFS programming, 
subject to one year's advance, written notification by the ITFS licensee 
to its ``wireless cable'' lessee. These hours of recapture are not 
restricted as to time of day or day of the week, but may be established 
by negotiations between the ITFS licensee and the ``wireless cable'' 
lessee.
    (3) For the first two years of operation, an ITFS entity may lease 
excess

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capacity if it provides ITSF programming at least 12 hours per channel 
per week, including up to four hours of ITFS usage per day.
    (4) The licensee may schedule the ITFS programming and use automatic 
channel switching equipment so as to employ channel mapping technology 
to lease to a ``wireless cable'' operator. However, an ITFS applicant 
should request only as many channel as it needs to fulfill its 
educational requirements.
    (5) All of the capacity available on any subsidiary channel of any 
authorized channel may be used for the transmission of material to be 
used by others.
    (6) When an ITFS licensee makes capacity available on a common 
carrier basis, it will be subject to common carrier regulation. A 
licensee operating as a common carrier is required to apply for the 
appropriate authorization and to comply with all policies and rules 
applicable to that service. Responsibility for making the initial 
determination of whether a particular activity is common carriage rests 
with the ITFS licensee. Initial determinations by the licensees are 
subject to Commission examination and may be reviewed at the 
Commission's discretion.
    (7) An ITFS applicant, permittee, or licensee may use an 
omnidirectional antenna to facilitate the leasing of excess capacity to 
``wireless cable'' operators.
    (8) Leasing activity may not cause unacceptable interference to 
cochannel and adjacent-channel operations.
    (9) A licensee may shift its requisite ITFS programming onto fewer 
than its authorized number of channels, via channel mapping technology 
or channel loading, so that it can lease full-time channel capacity to a 
wireless cable operator, subject to the condition that it provide a 
total average of at least 20 hours per channel per week of ITFS 
programming on its authorized channels. The licensee also retains the 
unabridgeable right to recapture, subject to six months' written 
notification to the wireless cable operator, an average of an additional 
20 hours per channel per week for simultaneous programming on the number 
of channels for which it is authorized. The licensee may agree to the 
transmission of this recapture time on channels not authorized to it, 
but which are included in the wireless system of which it is a part.
    (f) Material transmitted by these stations may be intended for 
simultaneous reception and display or may be recorded by authorized 
users for use at another time.
    (g) On a secondary basis, an ITFS station may be operated as a 
temporary fixed station from temporary unspecified points to an ITFS 
station under the provisions of paragraph (a), (b), (d) or (e) of this 
section.
    (h) Except as specified in paragraphs (i) and (j) of this section, 
no licensee of a station in this service may lease transmission time or 
capacity to any cable television company either directly or indirectly 
through an affiliate owned, operated, controlled by, or under common 
control with the cable television company, if the ITFS main transmitter 
station is within 32 km (20 miles) of the cable television company's 
franchise area or service area, and if the cable television company is 
the sole provider of cable television service in the franchise area.
    (i)(1) A cable television company shall be exempt from the 
provisions of paragraph (h) of this section if its franchise area 
contains none of the following:
    (i) Any incorporated place of 2,500 inhabitants or more, or any part 
thereof;
    (ii) Any unincorporated place of 2,500 inhabitants or more, or any 
part thereof; or
    (iii) Any other territory, incorporated or unincorporated, included 
in an urbanized area.
    (2) All population statistics and definitions used in qualifying for 
this exemption shall be the most recent available from the U.S. 
Department of Commerce, Bureau of the Census. In no event shall any 
statistics resulting from censuses prior to 1980 be used. The Census 
Bureau has defined some incorporated places of 2,500 inhabitants or more 
as ``extended cities.'' Such cities consist of an urban part and rural 
part.
    (3) If the cable operator's franchise area includes a rural part of 
an extended city, but includes no other territory described in this 
paragraph, an exemption shall apply.

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    (j) The provisions of paragraph (h) of this section will not apply 
to ITFS excess capacity leased directly or indirectly to cable operators 
or affiliates to provide locally-produced programming to cable headends. 
Locally-produced programming is programming produced in or near the 
cable operator's franchise area and not broadcast on a television 
station available within that franchise area. A cable operator or 
affiliate will be permitted to lease ITFS excess capacity equivalent to 
one MDS channel within 32 km (20 miles) of the cable television 
franchise area or service area for this purpose, and, within 32 km (20 
miles) of the cable television franchise area or service area, no more 
ITFS excess capacity than the equivalent of one MDS channel may be used 
by a cable television company or affiliate pursuant to this paragraph. 
The licensee for a cable operator providing local programming pursuant 
to a lease must include in a notice filed with the Mass Media Bureau a 
cover letter explicitly identifying its lessee as a local cable operator 
or affiliate and stating that the lease was executed to facilitate the 
provision of local programming. The first lease notification for an MDS 
or ITFS channel in an area filed with the Commission will be entitled to 
the exemption. The limitations on the equivalent of one MDS channel per 
party and per area include any cable/ITFS operations grandfathered 
pursuant to paragraph (k) of this section or any cable/MDS operations 
grandfathered pursuant to Sec. 21.912(f) of this chapter. Local 
programming service pursuant to a lease must be provided within one year 
of the date of the lease or one year of the grant of the licensee's 
application for the leased channel(s), whichever is later.
    (k) Lease arrangements between cable and ITFS entities for which a 
lease or a firm agreement was signed prior to February 8, 1990, will not 
be subject to the prohibitions of paragraph (h) of this section. Leases 
between cable television entities and ITFS entities executed on February 
8, 1990, or thereafter, are invalid.

[ 28 FR 13731 , Dec. 14, 1963, as amended at  33 FR 15424 , Oct. 17, 1968; 
 48 FR 33901 , July 26, 1983;  49 FR 27151 , July 2, 1984;  49 FR 32596 , Aug. 
15, 1984;  50 FR 26760 , June 28, 1985;  51 FR 9800 , Mar. 21, 1986;  55 FR 46013 , Oct. 31, 1990;  56 FR 57600 , Nov. 13, 1991;  56 FR 57819 , Nov. 14, 
1991;  56 FR 65191 , Dec. 16, 1991;  58 FR 34378 , June 25, 1993;  58 FR 44951 , Aug. 25, 1993;  59 FR 35636 , July 13, 1994]