Broadcasters warn bill would ‘undermine’ TV

Representatives from the hundreds of local TV stations affiliated with NBC, CBS, ABC and Fox are warning the Senate Commerce Committee not to move forward with a bill that would change some features of the television market.

The bill, they wrote, “asserts unprecedented extension of [Federal Communications Commission] regulatory authority over private marketplace negotiations” and unfairly singles out broadcast companies for new limits. “Singling out broadcasters and broadcasters, alone, for such enhanced regulatory treatment is patently unfair, discriminatory and anti-competitive, and it would create an even more uneven playing field between broadcasters and their principal competitors to the detriment of your constituents,” the broadcasters wrote. The changes broadcasters are protesting in the committee’s Satellite Television Access and Viewer Rights Act (STAVRA) are tacked onto the bill’s language renewing an otherwise uncontroversial law that lets some rural satellite subscribers watch distant broadcast channels.