I Want My Satellite TV

The government's television grab

Michael W. Lynch from the April 1999 issue

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Even the NAB is back-pedaling under assault from unhappy viewers and unhappier congressmen. "We don't blame the consumer here," says Wharton. "The fact is that they were duped. The consumers were duped into receiving this product thinking it was part of the package they could receive." He does, however, blame the "scofflaw satellite companies." Their strategy, he says, is "let's try to gin up all these customers [they] have hooked up illegally and put the wrath of several hundred thousand or more customers onto Congress and get them to change the law."

Actually, it's not a bad strategy.

When government blocks a new technology or innovative process, more often than not there's no large constituency to argue for the innovation, while there are plenty of vested interests eager to employ the rhetoric of "the public interest" to block it. But denying Americans their choice of something they already have is not a winning idea. Tell them they can no longer buy what they want, and you're in for a fight. A fight is exactly what Congress has.

The NAB's arguments boil down to these: We've fixed the law in our favor and it should never change. Local stations will lose advertising revenue when 20 percent to 30 percent of their customers peel off for clearer pictures, better sound, and better customer service. Without protectionism, NAB warns, Americans won't be able to get local weather and disaster news.

"Say you have an earthquake," Wharton suggests, after I tell him I'm originally from California and he realizes a snow storm example wouldn't work. "Local TV stations are the ones which provide information on breaking weather, emergencies, school closings, and things like that."

Not exactly. I was seven miles from the epicenter of Northern California's 1989 earthquake. I didn't need TV to tell me the ground was shaking, and I discovered that a portion of the Bay Bridge had collapsed and that the World Series game had been canceled from listening to my battery-powered radio. (The electricity tends to go out in a major quake.)

As for the need to get local weather news from local TV, remember Crystal Peterson? Her husband plows the Minnesota snow in the winter for extra income. He certainly needs accurate weather reports. Yet the Petersons happily tossed out their cable for the clarity of satellite TV. Until Crystal can get her local station through her dish, she reports, the radio works just fine for the weather report.

The SHVA is up for reauthorization this year. And come April, cable TV rates will be deregulated, and many in Congress would like to see that industry face some real competition. One solution would be to eliminate everyone's protections.

Cable could be freed from "must carry" regulations, which require local cable systems to transmit every broadcast station within their area, even if that means dumping C-SPAN to offer a fourth home-shopping station; satellites could be liberated from "can't carry" restrictions, which restrict them from providing local stations; and all parties could be urged to come to voluntary agreements over the rates paid to copyright holders. Consumers could pay for what they view, or limit themselves to what local networks provide.

This isn't likely to happen. Far more probable is a solution fashioned by Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), who chairs the Senate Commerce Committee, and Orrin Hatch (R-Utah), who chairs the Judiciary Committee. Their solution would permit satellite companies to broadcast "local-to-local" so long as they beamed down all the area's stations, a satellite version of cable's must-carry rules.

The NAB supports this approach. Congress will have to weigh the NAB's argument against Bud Smith's. "There's no reason I shouldn't be able to buy [my networks]," says Smith. "It's my money. I bought the dish. I maintain the dish. I should be able to buy what I want."

According to Wharton, Smith is simply "duped." Maybe Congress will come to a different conclusion.