Senate Committee Votes on Media Ownership, DTV Transition

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Date: Apr 24 2008 - 10:00am - 2:00pm

Senate Committee Plans Votes on Media Ownership, DTV Transition

On Thursday April 24, the Senate Commerce Committee votes on a number of bills and nominations including: 1) S.J. Res 28, A joint resolution disapproving the rule submitted by the Federal Communications Commission with respect to broadcast media ownership. SJ Res 28 would overturn new media ownership rules adopted by the FCC in December 2007. 2) S. 2607, A bill to make a technical correction to section 3009 of the Deficit Reduction Act of 2005. This bill would extend through FY2012 the requirement for the Assistant Secretary for Communications and Information of the Department of Commerce to make payments from the Digital Television Transition and Public Safety Fund to implement a program to reimburse each licensee of an eligible low-power television station for equipment to upgrade low-power television stations from analog to digital in eligible rural communities. The bill also requires such reimbursements to be issued to eligible stations on or after February 18, 2009 (currently, no earlier than FY2010). 3) S. 2507, DTV Border Fix Act of 2007. This bill would allow the renewal of a full-power analog television broadcasting license through February 17, 2014, for stations located within 50 miles of the U.S. border with Mexico, provided certain requirements are met, including that the renewal does not prevent the auction of recovered spectrum or encumber or interfere with any channel reserved for public safety use. The bill also requires the FCC, if mutually exclusive applications are submitted to use a channel under the amendments made by this Act, to award the authority to use the channel through competitive bidding under existing procedures.
http://commerce.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=PressReleases.Detail&PressRelease_id=60d301ba-8a0b-4384-b94a-66d863ee29da&Month=4&Year=2008

* Text of S. 2607
http://www.ntia.doc.gov/otiahome/dtv/pl_109_171_titleiii.pdf

* S.J.RES.28
http://www.benton.org/node/10069

* Senate Commerce Committee Tees Up FCC-Blocking Bill
http://www.broadcastingcable.com/article/CA6552462.html?rssid=193