Support For Existing Statute Expected at First 2013 STELA Hearing

Because a satellite operator must carry all the stations in a market if it carries any, “providing local broadcast signals in a market can use significant capacity,” the majority memo said. The satellite operator could otherwise use that capacity to carry national, non-broadcast programming that may have a larger nationwide audience than the stations would, especially in less-populated markets, it said. Unlike with distant broadcast signals, satellite operators can provide local broadcast signals to consumers regardless of whether the consumers can receive those signals over the air, but they aren’t exempt “from receiving the retransmission consent of the local broadcast station and may need to pay such broadcaster if the station does not elect mandatory carriage,” it said.

STELA included modifications to improve the situation of many public-TV stations “that were not receiving satellite carriage because of DMA (designated market area) boundary issues,” the Commerce Committee minority staff memo said. The passage of STELA gave viewers “access to the best that public television has to offer in the full splendor of high definition,” said APTS Chief Operating Officer Lonna Thompson. The provision requiring satellite carriers to carry public-TV licensees’ signals “removed statutory roadblocks that restricted the ability of residents and tax payers in states to receive the full benefits of their state’s public TV statewide network,” she said in prepared remarks (http://1.usa.gov/Y7ikCE). Thompson said APTS is pleased that the Supreme Court upheld STELA when Dish challenged it (CD Jan 24/12 p16). The court decided not to hear Dish’s challenge of a 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruling against the company’s lawsuit to stop STELA’s requirement that the DBS provider carry in HD public-TV stations in markets where it’s importing distant signals.

The provisions of STELA are the most recent reiteration in the series of statutes, said advance testimony from Eloise Gore, FCC Enforcement Bureau associate chief. Gore provided technical assistance to Congress on STELA and its predecessors. STELA includes changes to the significantly viewed provisions enacted in the Satellite Home Viewer Extension and Reauthorization Act “to promote use of the statutory provisions and provide additional choices for subscribers,” she said (http://1.usa.gov/XwPeQU). The provisions set to expire unless reauthorized by Congress involve satellite operators retransmitting distant network signals to an unserved household “without first obtaining the consent of the station,” she said. The provision prohibiting stations from engaging in exclusive contracts for carriage is set to expire Jan. 1, 2015, she said. Congress has taken into consideration equitable treatment for distant signal subscribers in each reauthorization process, she added.

There’s much more that Congress can do to expand consumers’ access to local programming, said Stanton Dodge, Dish executive vice president. In an era of more multichannel video programming distributor competition and the explosion of video on the Internet, “Congress should take this opportunity to look at ways the current statute could be updated to better reflect consumer expectations and desires,” he said in written testimony (http://1.usa.gov/Wj82C3). He credited STELA with making it possible for Dish to “bring network television programming to households in markets that lacked one or more of the four networks,” he said. Since 2010, the year the commission approved Dish’s certification as a qualified carrier (CD Sept 2/10 p6), Dish has been able to supply distant stations to qualified customers, he added. A court had issued a permanent injunction barring Dish from importing such signals, and STELA undid that ban.

NAB urged Congress to be guided by the principle that localism and free market competition “are the bedrocks of sound policy when addressing the copyright protections that support the public’s free, over-the-air local broadcast service,” said Jane Mago, executive vice president. The subcommittee’s discussion also should be mindful of government respect for contractual relationships “freely entered into by private parties for the retransmission of broadcast signals,” she said in prepared testimony (http://1.usa.gov/VRjUye). The Copyright Act’s Section 119, which governs secondary transmissions of distant TV programming by satellite, “is not designed and should not be allowed, to permit satellite carriers to undermine the locally-oriented contractual exclusivity of the network/affiliate relationship by delivering to viewers in served households -- who can already watch their own local ABC, CBS, Fox, and NBC stations -- network programming from another distant market,” she said. NAB wants Congress to “resist any calls to revise the retransmission consent rights of local television stations in the context of this legislation,” Mago said.