Local Dbs Clears House Panel Local Dbs Clears House Panel / But Must-carry Provisions Won't Work,...

A direct broadcast satellite company could legally beam a local TV station's signals back to its subscribers in the station's market if legislation approved by a key House panel becomes law.

There is a catch in the local-to-local plan approved by the House Judiciary Committee. While the DBS company gets to pick the markets it wants to use, it must carry all the stations in that local area.

It's a catch that EchoStar, the DBS company that sees local-to-local as its future, views as a trap.

"It's great to get local-to-local, but local-to-local with must-carry would effectively kill local-to-local for the only company delivering it, and that's EchoStar," said the company's lobbyist Karen Watson, following the committee's action.

EchoStar has been rolling out a local-to-local service in selected markets across the country, though the company is legally restricted to providing the service only to those customers who cannot receive a TV signal over the air. Company founder Charlie Ergen wants to provide it to all his customers. The problem is he lacks the satellite capacity to beam every TV signal everywhere in the country.

Rather, Ergen wants to deliver only the major networks and some other selected stations. As capacity increases he's promised to add more stations. EchoStar currently has the capacity to beam every local station back into areas covered by five or six local markets, and that's not enough to make it financially viable, the company argues.

"We absolutely cannot live with must-carry for local-to-local," Watson said. "There's not enough critical mass to do it in just a few markets. It's economically inefficient and technically inefficient."

While EchoStar contends that the bill does not go far enough, the lawmakers who wrote the bill argue that it is a good start.

"Time and again, we've heard that not having the ability to deliver network programming is the Achilles' heel of DBS," said Rep. Charles Coble, R-N.C., the bill's primary author. "This gives the satellite industry a number of tools necessary to allow it to compete with cable."

In addition to the local-to-local provisions, the bill also makes a number of changes to the copyright law that governs the service. They include:

¥Extending the satellite copyright compulsory license five years.

¥Ending the requirement that a DBS customer go 90 days without cable before turning on his dish.

¥Delaying the impact of a decision by the Library of Congress that would triple the amount of money copyright owners -- largely movie studios and sports leagues -- take in each year in satellite royalties. The new, higher fees would add about $50 million to the $30 million they make on the fees.

While time is short for any measure to make it all the way through Congress, some well-connected lobbyists thought chances were better since the bill won the support of powerful allies. National Association of Broadcasters chief Edward Fritts endorsed the bill last week.

"I think it raises the odds from 20% to 50-50," NAB lobbyist Jim May said.