As the SHVERA Act progresses toward being re-authorized, Congress continues to tinker with it to make sure nothing falls through the cracks.
The key provision of the bill – which will be renamed the Satellite Television Modernization Act – primarily covers the DBS companies, but it has some tangential affect on the cable industry. The intent is to continue, and make more fair, the ability to distribute “distant signals.”
Added to the bill are several amendments, as reported by the National Journal.
They are:
- Insert new grandfathering language to ensure that consumers who are lawfully receiving distant network programming do not lose access to that programming due to Judiciary Committee changes.
- Insert a new section to account for the Judiciary Committee’s decision to establish a process by which a federal court could lift an injunction that prevents one satellite carrier, Dish Network, from using the distant compulsory copyright license once it provides local service in every U.S. market.
- Insert a new section to ensure that nothing in this legislation, the Communications Act or any FCC regulation stands in the way of private negotiations over the retransmission of programming.
- Require the Commission to issue a report to Congress concerning the ability of consumers to access in-state programming and the use of the designated market area system to define local markets for the purposes of receiving in-state programming.
