FCC sees little room to help satellite TV viewers
Reuters Story - November 18, 1998 00:24
WASHINGTON, Nov 17 (Reuters) - Federal regulators on Tuesday said they lacked the legal authority to prevent more than half a million satellite television customers from losing access to shows from the major networks next year.
A federal court in Florida has ruled that under a 1988 law, satellite TV services illegally broadcast network programming to 700,000 ineligible customers. The court ordered a cut-off by February 28, 1999.
The Federal Communications Commission said Tuesday it would review the definition of ineligible customers under the 1988 law, called the Satellite Home Viewer Act, but warned that however it ultimately refined the definition, most would still be ineligible.
"This rulemaking wants to find those households that are truly unserved," Deborah Lathen, head of the FCC's cable services
bureau, said in a telephone interview. "But most of these people will not get relief from this rulemaking. The relief will have to come from Congress."
Only about 15 to 20 percent of those facing a cut-off would likely get a reprieve once the FCC decides how to revise the definition by early next year, another FCC official said.
Congress tried to pass legislation this year to resolve the controversey but ran out of time. Senator Pat Leahy, Democrat of
Vermont, and John McCain, Republican of Arizona, are both expected to push for a solution early next year.
Many lawmakers and regulators would like to allow satellite services to carry network programming to help the services better compete against monopoly land-based cable services.
But broadcasters oppose allowing satellites to carry their programnming unless the satellites are required to carry all stations in each local market -- a requirement that would exceed the satellite's current channel capacities.
Under the 1988 law, people who receive adequate over-the-air reception are prohibited from getting network programming from a satellite television service like EchoStar Communications Corp. or Hughes Electronics Corp.'s DirecTV.
But the standard for clear reception is the subject of much debate.
CBS Corp. and News Corp.'s Fox argued in court that by abusing the definition and sending network programming from just a few stations in major cities, the satellite services were hurting viewership of the network's local affiliates in smaller cities.
But the satellite television services argue that the network definition of who was eligible was too narrow and misread the 1988
law.
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