House Panel Planning Vote On DTV Bill In Mid-October

A senior member of the House Energy and Commerce Committee said that the committee would vote on digital television legislation during the week of Oct. 17­ when Congress is scheduled to return from a Columbus Day recess. Rep. Fred Upton (R-MI), who chairs the Energy and Commerce panel's Telecommunications and the Internet Subcommittee, also said that he and Energy and Commerce Chairman Joe Barton (R-TX) would stick with a subsidy of less than $1 billion for set-top converter boxes -- which are necessary to allow viewers with analog televisions to receive digital signals over the air. By comparison, committee Democrats have pushed for a more generous subsidy plan in the range of $2.5 billion or above. Up until now, the Republicans have tended to favor limiting the subsidy by imposing an income test -- while Democrats have been skeptical of a means-testing approach. But Rep Upton said that committee members were now gravitating toward a subsidy scheme that does not include requirements that set-top box subsidies be based on an individual's income -- or dependent on whether a viewer is a subscriber to a cable or satellite system. Once the transition to digital broadcasts takes place, cable or satellite subscribers would still be able to receive programming on an analog set­ even without a converter box. Upton said the committee would likely favor a policy that allows two "vouchers" per household for the purchase of a set-top box. In an interview after a subcommittee hearing on communications issues related to Hurricane Katrina, Upton also said that a requirement that cable operators carry broadcasters' multiple digital channel streams -- so-called multicasting -- "is not going to be part of the base [DTV] bill, and the prospects for adding it as an amendment in the House are probably pretty dim."
* Stevens Sticking With 2009 Date
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