Contradictory Congress confounding satcasters

Mixed signals sent over mandatory antenna bill

By MICHAEL GREBB

WASHINGTON -- The House antitrust subcommittee passed a bill Thursday that would force satcasters to buy antennas for anyone who had illegally received distant network signals and could otherwise get local stations over the air. Satcasters, who had been euphoric Wednesday when the Senate Commerce Committee passed a bill that would grandfather in most of those subscribers, were in utter shock after the House vote on Thursday.

"No one even told us about this amendment," said one frustrated satcaster rep in the hallway after the vote. "It's just astonishing that a Republican Congress would do this. They're forcing us to raise rates on our subscribers. This is a tax."

Satcasters quickly predicted they would be able to persuade members to strip out the provision before the bill, which is intended to amend the Satellite Home Viewer Act, went to a vote of the full House Judiciary Committee.

The amendment, offered by Rep. Bob Goodlatte, R-Va., and backed by broadcasters, would require satcasters to "provide free of charge an over-the-air television broadcast receiving antenna" to anyone cut off as a result of illegally receiving distant signals. The antenna would have to provide at least a signal of "grade B" intensity, the lowest quality considered acceptable under federal standards.

Current subscribers in grade-B areas would be allowed to continue receiving distant signals indefinitely, but satcasters would have to immediately cut off grade-A subscribers, who make up the vast majority of the those receiving distant signals.