Satellite Bill Likely Not Slated for Senate Floor Debate

The House is taking the first crack at satellite legislation, but full committee markups have been slowed by House focus on energy and health care legislation. The Communications Subcommittee held two hearings and a markup on its bill (HR-2994), and Judiciary held a hearing and has circulated draft legislation. Commerce and Judiciary Committee leaders said in June they had hoped to vote on bills before the August recess. That work now is pushed to the fall. Differences between the two bills would be resolved on the House floor, then sent to the Senate, where the two committees will tackle the measure, said a leadership spokeswoman.

“It is not a surprise that the satellite bill won’t have floor time,” a Senate source said. “We suspect that the majority will try to clear the bill by UC [unanimous consent] or maybe try to put” it into an appropriations bill. “But they have not said what their plans are yet.” Progress is dependent on how much time the Senate has available after its primary legislative initiatives, which include passing appropriations bills, and potentially energy and health care legislation.

The last reauthorization of the satellite bill was included in the FY 2005 Appropriations Act. After numerous hearings and negotiations, broadcasters and DBS companies reached agreement on a range of issues related to the distant signal license, which falls under Section 119 of the Copyright Act and is the only portion of satellite legislation that must be renewed this year. “To the extent all interested parties can reach consent on issues makes it a smoother process,” said Susan Eid, vice president of DirecTV.

Agreement is yet to be reached between broadcasters and DBS to provide all 210 designated market areas with local broadcast signals, industry sources said. Communications Subcommittee Chairman Rick Boucher, D-Va., has spearheaded negotiations, which center on a proposal that Dish agree to provide “local into local” service in exchange for removal of a court-ordered ban on the operator’s ability to import distant signals. The Judiciary draft includes language that would waive the injunction.

But a recent Congressional Research Service report notes that some observers “have expressed concern that the discussion draft would leave it to the Copyright Office, which does not have adjudicatory experience or technical communications experience, to make a determination that Dish Network has willfully and intentionally stopped providing local-into-local service. … These observers have suggested that this responsibility is better left to the FCC, which has the requisite adjudicatory experience and technical expertise.”

The CRS report flags as the two major policy issues the question of allowing satellite to import distant signals from adjacent markets, and mandating that satellite provide all local broadcast station signals to subscribers. At a minimum, Congress needs to update language in the Act, changing references from analog to digital. No one opposes this change, and it’s included in the bill (HR-2994) the House Communications Subcommittee passed by voice vote June 25 (CD June 26 p1).

Many members of Congress are keenly interested in seeing the local-into-local issue resolved. Rep. Bart Stupak, D- Mich., introduced a bill (HR-927) at the start of this Congress mandating satellite provide local-into-local service in all 210 markets. Such a requirement would strengthen broadcasters’ bargaining position in retransmission consent negotiations with multichannel video programming distributors, the CRS report said. But satellite has maintained that the requirement would place an unfair and expensive burden on the industry, which serves 98 percent of households, CRS said. If mandated, satellite would like to see conditions such as a requirement that local broadcasters produce a certain percentage of local programming, share in the costs of uplink equipment needed to provide a good quality signal and eliminate retransmission consent fees for the smallest markets.

Other members of Congress would like to see the bill resolve problems with importation of signals in adjacent markets. Rep. Mike Ross, D-Ark., has introduced a bill (HR- 3216) that would remedy this issue. Ross is hoping the bill or “something similar” might be included in the Commerce draft, a Ross aide said. Split DMA markets could cause members running for re-election to buy political ads in two separate markets, if the adjacent signals are not brought in, which is one reason lawmakers may want to see it changed, one industry source said.

Numerous states have an “orphan county” situation, in which counties assigned to a DMA that have a primary city outside the state, CRS said. Percentages of TV households affected varies: In Arkansas, nearly 20 percent of households are affected; Virginia, 40 percent; California, less than 1 percent; Vermont, 13 percent and West Virginia, 20 percent.

Meanwhile, the Judiciary Committee has raised concerns that Commerce’s adjacent market proposals are invading Judiciary jurisdiction since they deal with compulsory licensing issues, Judiciary Chairman John Conyers, D-Mich., said in a June statement. “We intend to evaluate all of the proposed changes to the compulsory licenses with a critical eye as to whether they advance our stated principles.”