Broadcasting (Apr - June 1960)

CATV BILL FAILS BY SINGLE VOTE Legislation to place catv under FCC sent back to committee The Senate by a narrow vote of 3938 last week effectively killed for this year a bill (S 2653) to place community antenna systems under FCC regulation. (The next day, Thursday, Chairman Oren Harris of the House Commerce Committee said he would go ahead with hearings on S 1886, a bill to license vhf tv boosters, passed by the Senate Sept. 9, 1959. Rep. Harris said he hasn’t decided on dates for hearing the bill, which he had been rxolding while awaiting Senate action on the related catv bill.) The Senate voted to send the catv measure back to the Senate Commerce Committee for further study after two days of floor debate at which bitter charges were frequently hurled back and forth between champions of the bill and its opponents. Looking on in the galleries was a big attendance of catv operators, whose letters, wires and visits to senators on Capitol Hill were described by some of the catv bill’s most vocal supporters as well-organized, high pressure lobbying tactics. Opponents defended these activities as entirely legal and proper. Heading the band of dedicated senators from western and northwestern states backing the bill was easterner John O. Pastore (D-R.I.), whose Senate Communications Subcommittee has held hearings on catv, vhf booster and translator problems since 1958. Leading the opposition was Oklahoman A.S. Mike Monroney, next-ranking Democrat behind Sen. Pastore on the communications group, who along with his colleague, Robert S. Kerr (D-Okla.), introduced the prevailing motion to recommit the catv legislation. Floor Fight ■ Sen. Kerr’s dogged opposition and Sen. Pastore’s equally emphatic support touched off exchanges between the two which got as near as senators usually ever get to name-calling. The main argument by Sen. Pastore and the westerners was that catv, by invading cities which have only one tv station, can black out the station’s service to viewers beyond the suburbs, including those in more distant and more remote areas who use vhf boosters to receive its programs. These are the “little people,” said Sen. Pastore, and if their single station is driven off the air by a catv operation which brings in multiple programs from distant stations they are left with a complete blackout of tv service. These catv operators “skim the cream” from the local tv station’s audience, using program signals they didn’t help create, Sen. Pastore said. The bill, he said, would protect from “unfair” competition only these single tv stations. An existing catv system, even in such markets, could operate at least for the three-year period of its first license, automatically granted under a “grandfather clause” in the bill, before the FCC could consider whether any economic injury to the station was against the public interest. He warned that if the U.S. Supreme Court decides, in a case currently being considered, that catv operators must get permission to use the signals of an originating station, the catv operators “sitting in the gallery will be back here on their hands and knees asking us for help.” The present mild legislation placing catv under FCC regulation would give them protection if enacted now, he said, because the FCC could be expected to restrain originating tv stations from charging catv a prohibitively high price for using their signals. Catv may also wish it had accepted a benevolent FCC regulation of the systems as non-common carriers if individual states should decide they are common carriers and begin setting the rates they can charge, he said. The Opponents ■ Sen. Monroney and a coalition of senators from the Southwest, adjacent southern states and easterners held that the bill would bring all the 768 catv systems in the U.S. under FCC regulation for the sake of a few one-market stations and a minority of viewers. He acknowledged that some regulation of catv may be needed in one-station markets, but said this shouldn’t require blanket licensing of all catv. This is an undue burden on catv systems, many of which are small operations, he said, hinting that the bill may be part of a plot by Washington attorneys practicing before the FCC to add 768 catv clients to their lists. Referring to statements by some proponents that they understood the National Community Tv Assn.’s attorney, Stratford Smith, had tentatively agreed in behalf of his organization to the bill with modifying amendments, Sen. Monroney denied Mr. Smith spoke for NCTA. NCTA, he said, always has been against any FCC regulation requiring licensing. Sen. Monroney read the FCC’s comments on an identical House bill (HR 11041), submitted to the House Commerce Committee last Monday (see story or box), which reiterated its earlier opposition to licensing of catv systems. Other opponents to the bill termed it a needless encroachment by the federal government on private business, with attendant complications and confusion for small business. Sen. Kerr, arguing with Sen. Pastore, charged that the Rhode Islander wished to make catv operators “slaves” under the FCC. A sample of one of their heated exchanges: Pastore: The senator (Kerr) could not be more wrong than he is. Kerr: Well the senator (Pastore) has proved that one senator can be wrong. Senators offered several floor amendments on the bill, some minor or conciliatory and some tactical. Sen. Gordon Allott (R-Colo.) offered an amendment which would require a catv system to get permission from an originating station to carry its signals, but shortly afterward withdrew it at the request of Sen. Pastore, who said it would jeopardize passage of the bill. How They Voted ■ When the Senate voted 39-38 to recommit the bill, Sen. Mike Mansfield (D-Mont.) immediately moved to reconsider, but Sen. Kerr moved to table such reconsideration. The Senate tabled reconsideration by a 38-36 vote. Here is how the 77 senators present voted: To recommit S 2653 to the Senate BROADCASTING, May 23, 1960 IN THE HILL HOPPER Here are capsulated versions of new legislation of interest to broadcasters and advertisers: S 3560. Sen. James 0. Eastland (D-Miss.) — extend the present criminal penalties for malicious damage to government-operated communications facilities to commercial communications networks (leased lines), since “every facet of the nation's planned protection from surprise attack— from civil defense to the launching of retaliatory missiles — is dependent on commercial communication lines . . ." Reported from Judiciary Commit tee to Senate floor. May 17. HR 12268. Rep. J. Arthur Younger (RCalif.) — require the FCC, Federal Trade Commission and five other regulatory agencies to set up systems to charge fees to those served by the agencies' regulatory activities. Commerce Committee. May 17. HR 11297. Rep. Don Magnuson (D-Wash.) — permanently amend the Communications Act to require the FCC to consult with interested persons in small communities and rural areas on problems of providing adequate tv service at reasonable cost. Commerce Committee. May 18. 84 (GOVERNMENT)