03-23-1992 Council Packet - Laserfiche WebLink

Home Browse Search

S 12 Passes Senate on a 73-18 Vote CONTINUED Not unexpectedly, an ebullient Eddie Fritts, president of the Na tional Association of Broadcasters, issued a statement saying, ‘The Senate has taken a giant leap to ward ensuring the long-term viabil ity of universal free, over-thc-air television. This is a great victory for broadcasters and consumers." Fritts’ remarks echoed com ments made earlier last week by some Senate proponents of S 12 during the debate. They called the alternative package an attempt to gut their bill. The alternative, they said, would do nothing for con sumers or for checking the cable industry's market power. Sen. Howard Metzenbaum (D- Ohio) said the alternative should be called "the Cable Television Monopoly Maintenance Act" Community Antenna Television Association president Steve Effros countered that S 12 is the "Broad casting Bailout Bill of 1992." With Senate action completed, the spot light now turns to the House, which has two major cable le-regulation bills pending con sideration by the telecommunications sub committee. One of the bills, otfered by subcommittee chairman Edward Markey (D-Mass.), is less harsh than S 12. while another, offered by Reps. Dennis Eckart (D-Ohio) and Jim Cooper (D-Tenn.), is more in line witli S 12. Late la.st Friday afternoon. Markey said he intends to schedule a markup of cable leg islation within four to six weeks. Some sources believe the cable industry will try to strike a compromise in the Hou.se. where the re-rcguladon issue has gained less momentum and has failed to pick up widespread support among key Republicans who oversee cormnumcaiions policy. Unless the House were to pass a bill iden tical to the Senate’s (which congressional sources doubt at this point), chances arc that any package passed by the House, whether it was a cable-designed and administration- backed compromise or not. would head into a conference conunittee. The conference committee would work to resolve differences in the two bills, a process, sources say. in which anything c.«r. hapjvn. Each chamber then votes on the cm r-.iiicc’s product AMENDMENTS TO S 12 Interestingly, two of the amendments adopted to S 12 came from the alternative measure. Sen. Slade Gorton ’.s (R-Wash.) amendmenLs would expand the Cable Act's rural exemption waiver so that telephone companies could automatically build cable systems in areas of 10,000 people and pro hibit cities from granting exclusive cable franchises. Other important amendments adopted were ones from Sen. Trent Lott (R-Miss.) that would allow cable operators to itemize franchise fees and other regulatory costs; Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) that would require cable convertor boxes to be mote user-friendly; and Gorton. One Gorton amendment would pro hibit cable operators and programmers from using negative-opdon markedng and another would require operators to assign customers personal identifica- don numbers to access their accounts and safeguard their privacy. Sen. Daniel Inouye (D-Hawaii) suc cessfully offered amendments that: would give the FCC the authority to make sure that retransmission consent does not lead to “unreasonable" rate increases; and encourage the carriage of minority programming on cable systems. Sen. Jesse Helms (R-N.C.) got through an amendment that would al low cable operators to reject the car riage of sexually explicit programming on Icased-access channels, require op erators to place such programming on a single channel and to block the channel un less a subscriber requests otherwise. Another successful Helms amendment would require cable operators to nodfy sub- scriben when unsolicited X-rated, R-rated and NC-17-raicd movies arc being provided to them free of charge as part of a promodon. Subscribers would be given the right to re quest that the charuiel be blocked. The Senate also adopted an amendment from Sen. John Breaux (D-La.) that doesn ’t force cable operators to carry home shopping stations as part of their must-carry obliga tions under the bill. Sen. Bob Graham (D-Ra.), whose state js the headquarters of Home Shopping Net work, objected to Breaux's amendment. Gra- h.-vn managed to get a provision tacked onto the Breaux amendment to have the FCC de- Icnnine whether home shopping stations arc eligible for must-c.in> sl.iuis ■