House Passes Bill Extending Satellite Blanket License to April 30

Bill must go to Senate for passage before March 28

By John Eggerton -- Broadcasting & Cable, 3/17/2010 9:54:26 PM

The House passed HR 4851 on March 17, according to a Hill staffer following the satellite bill's progress. The bill is a stop-gap measure that extends until April 30 the satellite blanket license, along with other programs--like unemployment benefits--that had been scheduled to sunset back in December. Now the bill must go to the Senate for passage before March 28, when the current license expires.

The House is also currently considering the Senate-passed full, five-year reauthorization of the satellite license, which allows satellite companies to offer distant network TV station signals to subs who can't receive a viewable local version. When Congress failed to pass a five-year extension of the license back in December, it was extended to Feb. 28, then to March 28, along with several jobs-related programs that were also scheduled to sunset Dec. 31, 2009. But that bill has other problems, said a Senate Judiciary Committee source, and may not pass before the March 28 deadline.

When the full, five-year extension does pass, it is expected to include a provision for providing satellite delivery of local signals to the remaining couple dozen markets where it has been uneconomical to deliver them.

That is thanks to a deal that allows Dish Network back into the business of delivering distant signals in exchange for serving those markets. Dish has been barred from distant signal delivery after a court concluded it had not accurately identified the subs who qualified for them. Determining eligibility is key, since a local ABC affiliate, for example, does not want a distant ABC affiliate to be imported to viewers who can receive its signal.

The bill is also expected to have an advanced timetable for Dish carriage of noncommercial stations' HD signals. A spokesperson for the Association for Public Television Stations said this week that they were still negotiating a private deal for HD carriage that would make that amendment moot.

Dish has said in the past that it would be hard pressed to find the satellite capacity to meet the timetables for both the delivery of local-into-local signals and the expedited HD carriage.