[Congressional Bills 109th Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
[S. 2418 Introduced in Senate (IS)]
109th CONGRESS
2d Session
S. 2418
To preserve local radio broadcast emergency and other services and to
require the Federal Communications Commission to conduct a rulemaking
for that purpose.
_______________________________________________________________________
IN THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES
March 15, 2006
Ms. Snowe (for herself, Mr. Baucus, and Mr. Lott) introduced the
following bill; which was read twice and referred to the Committee on
Commerce, Science, and Transportation
_______________________________________________________________________
A BILL
To preserve local radio broadcast emergency and other services and to
require the Federal Communications Commission to conduct a rulemaking
for that purpose.
Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the
United States of America in Congress assembled,
SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE.
This Act may be cited as the ``Local Emergency Radio Service
Preservation Act of 2006''.
SEC. 2. FINDINGS.
Congress finds the following:
(1) A primary objective and benefit of the Nation's
regulation of radio broadcasting is the local origination of
programming. There is a substantial governmental interest in
ensuring its continuation.
(2) Local broadcast radio stations are an important source
of local news and weather programming and other local broadcast
services critical to the public.
(3) Local radio broadcasting is particularly important in
times of emergencies or disasters when other means of
communications may not be available.
(4) Radio is the most ubiquitous of all mass media, with
receivers located in almost every home and automobile in the
country.
(5) Because radio receivers are universally available and
frequently battery-powered or located in automobiles, the
Federal Communications Commission's Media Security and
Reliability Council concluded that ``radio broadcasters are
likely to be the last line of defense for communicating with
the public under extremely adverse conditions that could result
in the event of a local disaster''. There is a substantial
governmental interest in ensuring the continuation of this
capability.
(6) Broadcast radio programming is supported by revenues
generated from advertising broadcast over stations. Such
programming is free to listeners. There is a substantial
governmental interest in promoting the continued availability
of free radio programming.
(7) Because radio programming is supported by advertising,
the ability of local stations to continue to provide local news
and other services and to ensure communications during
emergencies could be jeopardized by a diversion of the
listening audience away from local radio programming.
(8) When the Federal Communications Commission authorized
the digital audio radio satellite service, it stated that it
remained ``committed to supporting a vibrant and vital
terrestrial radio service for the public''.
(9) When the Federal Communications Commission authorized
the digital audio radio satellite service, it understood that
digital audio radio satellite service licensees would provide
only national programming and accepted the contentions of the
proponents of digital audio radio satellite service that the
new service would not affect local broadcasting because ``the
ability to offer local content will give terrestrial
broadcasters a competitive advantage''.
(10) Digital audio radio satellite service licensees have
announced plans to offer local traffic and weather channels
through the use of their satellites.
(11) Developments in receiver technology will enable
digital audio radio satellite service licensees to offer new
services in the future, including localized content that may be
intermixed with other national content or that would be
selected based on the listener's location.
SEC. 3. LIMITS ON LOCALIZED DIGITAL AUDIO RADIO SATELLITE SERVICE
PROGRAMMING.
The Federal Communications Commission shall revise section 25.144
of title 47, Code of Federal Regulations, to provide that--
(1) digital audio radio satellite service licensees may
not, using any capability either on a satellite or in a radio
receiver, provide services that are locally differentiated or
that result in programming being delivered to consumers in 1
geographic market that is different from the programming that
is delivered to consumers in any other geographic market; and
(2) digital audio radio satellite service repeaters shall
be restricted to simultaneously retransmitting the programming
transmitted by satellite directly to digital audio radio
satellite service subscribers' receivers, and may not be used
to distribute any information not also transmitted to all
subscribers' receivers.
SEC. 4. FEDERAL COMMUNICATIONS COMMISSION RULEMAKING ON LOCAL SERVICES
BY SATELLITE PROVIDERS.
Not later than 270 days after the date of enactment of this Act,
the Federal Communications Commission shall complete a rulemaking
proceeding to determine whether digital audio radio satellite service
licensees should be permitted to provide locally oriented services on
nationally distributed channels, taking into account--
(1) the impact of locally oriented satellite radio services
on the viability of local radio broadcast stations and their
ability to provide news and other services to the public;
(2) the ability of digital audio radio satellite service
licensees to afford listeners the same emergency and other
information as is afforded listeners of local broadcast radio
stations;
(3) whether digital audio radio satellite service licensees
committed to providing only national services in order to
obtain authorization for their service; and
(4) whether the same level and quality of emergency
communications services could be provided to consumers by
digital audio radio satellite service licensees as by local
broadcast radio stations.
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