Dish Closer to Carrying Distant TV Signals Under Draft FCC Order
Dish Network gets a step closer to being able to resume importing signals of TV stations outside subscribers’ home markets with the same affiliation as the local broadcaster, in a draft FCC order delivering on part of this year’s Satellite TV Extension and Localism Act, agency officials said. They said the draft would certify the DBS provider as carrier of such distant TV signals because it’s carrying TV stations in all 210 markets. That would let Dish meet another part of STELA so it can resume carrying stations to subscribers who wouldn’t be able to get their local station with an antenna.
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The draft from the Media Bureau isn’t seen within the agency as controversial, commission officials said. They predicted it’s likely to be approved soon, maybe later this week or next, after first circulating Aug. 23. The draft item finds that one broadcaster’s opposition to the DBS company’s request for distant signal certification on the grounds that Dish hasn’t made satisfactory progress in negotiating to carry a Maryland broadcaster’s signal (CD July 22 p18) isn’t germane to the proceeding at hand, an FCC official said. A bureau spokeswoman declined to comment on the draft.
After the order is issued, Dish still has a ways to go before it can resume carrying distant signals, which a U.S. District Court judge in Florida permanently barred the company from doing after it was sued by several of the Big Four broadcast networks. Under STELA, the company must ask the judge to rescind the injunction so such broadcasts can resume, FCC officials said. The FCC is defined by STELA as the finder of fact of whether Dish has met the legislation’s terms of getting out of the injunction by carrying the signals of major TV stations in all 210 markets, commission officials said. Dish declined to comment.
The FCC’s order would be included in paperwork Dish must file with the judge as part of requesting he grant the company a permanent waiver from the earlier injunction, an industry executive said. Dish also would give the jurist an affidavit swearing it serves all 210 markets and make a motion for the appointment of a special master to oversee the payment by the company of distant signal royalties, the person said. The networks that sued Dish and that company must agree on who to appoint as a special master and Dish would pay some costs related to documents that would be given to the overseer, executives said. There’s no set time frame for the judge to grant Dish’s request, one said.