House lawmakers may be close to moving on key satellite TV legislation.

[Chris Blount]

Observers said House leaders are prepared to marry two bills - one from the Judiciary Committee and the other from the Energy and Commerce Committees - and they may take that bill combination to the House floor. A House floor vote on the combined legislation could possibly happen this week or next week.

In addition to legislation in the House, the industry continues to monitor bills that could impact the satellite TV business in the Senate. There is no news concerning those pieces of legislation.

http://www.skyreport.com (Used with permission)

[Mr. Shvia]

Note: These two bills to be married are H.R.4518 & H.R.4501. They are NOT S.2013 and S.2644 as meantioned in my previous post. Both H.R.4518 & H.R.4501 contain the exact same language as eachother and both contain no distants where local into local is provided clauses, and both make no mention of Distant HD Stations.

[SimpleSimon]

Here's what I sent to my house rep:
H.R.4518 & H.R.4501 are coming to the floor regarding satellite TV regulation. NEITHER ONE IS GOOD! So far as I know, the closest bill to a good one is S. 2644.

As a mountain resident and somewhat of a shut-in, satellite TV is very important to me. I want to be able to CONTINUE to receive my distant networks, including WB & UPN.

I will NEVER be able to receive TV over the air even though the Colorado Springs stations say I belong to them (there's too much granite in the way). I do not "belong" to anybody, and want the FREEDOM to watch whatever TV my supplier can give me.

The NAB and others simply wish to protect their outmoded business model and so-called 'service' areas. The way that DMAs are determined in Colorado has almost nothing to do with reality. For example, ALL of Park County is forced into the Denver DMA, even though half the county is more "connected" to Colorado Springs. The opposite is true in other areas. Other parts of the country have a different problem in that the popular stations are from a different DMA simply because the maps do not reflect reality.

Finally, "I want my HDTV". Satellite technology won't be able to bring local digital TV network programming to me for many years - and even then, it is not necessarily going to be HD - they are NOT the same thing! Many local stations won't make the investment to do it - they are simply making the minimum changes needed to comply with the required conversion to digital.

[Geronimo]

Note: These two bills to be married are H.R.4518 & H.R.4501. They are NOT S.2013 and S.2644 as meantioned in my previous post. Both H.R.4518 & H.R.4501 contain the exact same language as eachother and both contain no distants where local into local is provided clauses, and both make no mention of Distant HD Stations.


I guess that explains why I heard tehre were 3 bills not four. The 2 house bills were identical.