[opendtv] News: Birds Get to Keep Sticks
- From: Craig Birkmaier <craig@xxxxxxxxx>
- To: OpenDTV Mail List <opendtv@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Thu, 29 Apr 2004 07:55:12 -0400
Birds Get to Keep Sticks
By John Eggerton & Bill McConnell -- Broadcasting & Cable, 4/28/2004
12:16:00 PM
The House Telecommunications Subcommittee Wednesday reauthorized the
bill that gives satellite companies the right to carry local
broadcast stations, requiring them to carry all stations in any
market where they carry any.
The Satellite Home Viewer Enhancement and Reauthorization Act does
not give satellite companies the ability to deliver distant digital
signals to customers not yet able to get a digital signal, a change
that EchoStar and some others had pushed for, but it does direct the
FCC to study the issue of so-called digital white areas and report to
Congress by the end of 2005.
Unlike the former law, the reauthorized bill prevents satellite
companies from putting some TV stations on a second dish, which
smaller broadcasters saw as a way to marginalize them. There can
still be two dishes, but all the broadcasters must be on one of them.
An amendment that would have imposed a la carte obligations on
satellite and cable was withdrawn, but could be reintroduced at the
full-committee markup in two weeks, though Subcommittee Chairman
Fred Upton (R-Mich.) afterwards indicated he was leaning toward
keeping it out of the bill. "Im not sure it's germane," he said. It
would also definitely be controversial, likely enough so to bog down
the bill, and others want more hearings on the subject anyway.
Some lawmakers see requiring cable and satellite operators to give
subscribers the ability to pick and choose the channels they want as
way to respond to public concerns about controling indecent content
into the home, as well as a way to hold down cable prices.
"We are particularly pleased the Subcommittee moved decisively to end
EchoStar's two-dish practice and rejected an ill-guided proposal to
allow distant digital signal importation, "NAB President Eddie Fritts
said in a statement.
"NAB and our local television station members will continue working
closely with Members of both the House and Senate as this bill moves
through the legislative process."
Judiciary will look at its version of the bill next Thursday (there
is split jurisdiction, since it involves changes to both the
Copyright Act and the Communications Act), then the two versions will
be combined into one bill before it goes to the floor. Senate
Commerce has a hearing next Tuesday on its simple one-line
reauthorization of the existing bill.
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