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Eshoo: No Consensus on Revisiting Cable Act
7/3/2012
WASHINGTON: Despite some Republican
members of the House of Representatives urging, at a hearing on the future of video, that the Cable
Act of 1992 (P.L. 102-385) be amended or repealed, the Democratic ranking
member of the Subcommittee on Communications and Technology is skeptical the legislation will be revisited. However, revisiting the
Cable Act could affect the educational stations the act now directs be carried by
cable companies.
“I wouldn’t leap-frog and make the assumption that the Cable Act is going to be
revisited,” House subcommittee on communications and technology Ranking Member
Anna Eshoo, D-Calif., told Government Video following the June 27, 2012
hearing. In addition, “because there isn’t any consensus on that. I just don’t think it stands,” that public, education or
government stations will lose the channels local cable providers now provide,
she said.
Nonetheless, Rep. Steven Scalise, R-La., said, both technology and the “video
market place” have changed from the time the Cable Act of 1992 was written and
there is a need to “modernize” the “decades-old regulatory frame work.”
Under the current legislation, traditional distributors remain subject to
“archaic regulations,” while new interests “operate virtually free of the heavy
hand of government,” Scalise said. Therefore, Congress should “focus on
providing relief by repealing the intertwined” Copyright Act of 1976 (P.L.
94-553) and the Satellite Home Viewer Act of 1988 (P.L. 100-667) which both
contains compulsory copyright provision governing cable companies, as well as
the Cable Act of 1992, he added. “Taking away these government intrusions will
level the playing field for content creators and video distributors alike,” he
said.
In addition, Rep. Joe Barton, R-Texas, said it is “too late to do a major bill
in this Congress, but I hope in the next Congress we take this up.”
While Barton wants to revisit legislation that governs the cable industry, but
he did not list any specific laws or regulations that he believes needs to be
revisited. He did say, “In general I think we’re better off having less
regulation, and more enterprise and more market competition.”
Barton also said any effort to change existing legislation governing cable
systems has to be bipartisan. “If we’re going to do big things,
it has to be done on a bipartisan basis. This is not a partisan issue. It will
go nowhere if it comes to 'R' versus 'D'.”
Further, because the focus is on the next Congress—which convenes in January
2013—it is too early to discuss provisions of any bill, said Michael Powell,
president of the National Cable & Telecommunications Association, who was
on the panel of witnesses appearing before the subcommittee. If the next
Congress does revisit the Cable Act of 1992—or other legislation affecting the
PEG channels—such an effort is too far in the future to say if NCTA would
oppose a renewal of the current PEG provisions state and local franchise
authorities have, he said.
“We’re a long way from committing to any specific element of legislation,”
Powell said.
~ Government Video
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