1.   Broadcast station licenses and monopoly cable franchises cost their original owners nothing except legal fees.

2.   Although DirecTV offers some broadcast stations to its customers, they are not tailored to local markets.

3.   And local cable operators simply retransmit the signals of the local broadcast stations.

4.   And they generally deal only with complaints against the newspaper or broadcast station they represent.

5.   And, of course, there is competition from other players in the field, like the old standby broadcast stations.

6.   As a result, metropolitan areas like New York and Los Angeles will have all local broadcast stations available by satellite, up from the current handfuls.

7.   At their root, the rules say that cable operators generally must devote up to a third of their channel capacity to carrying signals from local broadcast stations.

8.   A new Federal Communications Commission regulation requires broadcast stations to provide three hours a week of educational programs for children, starting in September.

9.   A quick check of the Web turns up thousands of radiolike sites, including online versions of many broadcast stations.

10.   A victory for the companies could force the department to ease its restrictions on combinations involving broadcast stations, newspapers and magazines.