House Communications Subcommittee Passes Draft Bill to Reauthorize Nation’s Satellite Television Law

The House Subcommittee on Communications and Technology, chaired by Rep. Greg Walden (R-OR), advanced draft legislation to reauthorize the Satellite Television Extension and Localism Act, which contains provisions set to expire December 31, 2014. This draft legislation would reauthorize the law for five years and ensure that 1.5 million subscribers in hard-to-reach areas continue to receive broadcast content via their chosen satellite provider. The subcommittee adopted an amendment offered by Chairman Walden and subcommittee Ranking Member Anna Eshoo (D-CA) by voice vote. The subcommittee also approved the draft bill by voice vote.

The Republican-led draft initially had a provision preventing the Federal Communications Commission from taking any action on making joint sales agreements attributable unless it was in the context of an overall resolution of the overdue 2010 quadrennial rule review. That provision remains in the bill, but has been put in brackets, which is a way to say that agreement has yet to be reached, but still allow the draft to get subcommittee approval, signaling there will be further discussion of that element in the full committee markup. Chairman Walden said he still believed it should be part of the bill, while Eshoo agreed that the FCC needs to complete its quadrennial review and appreciated the chairman's willingness to continue to talk about how to achieve that. The draft's provision eliminating the FCC's integration ban on set-tops was amended to say that the FCC still has the power to reinstate the ban on any successor to the CableCARD regime. The markup was relatively short and almost remarkably free of contentiousness.