We don’t yet know the exact time or date, but we do know that House Communications Subcommittee Chairman Greg Walden (R-OR) is planning to take up the Satellite Television Extension and Localism Act next month. Parts of the measure are subject to sunset by the end of 2014.
The measure governs the delivery of video programming to consumers, and of course, that is a business that has been undergoing constant technological and competitive evolution, forcing the need to evaluate which portions of the law are useful, which are obsolete or counterproductive and which are in need of modification.
“Whether over the air from local broadcasters, through a paid subscription to a satellite, cable, or fiber provider, or streaming over the Internet, consumers have unprecedented access to view quality video content,” said Walden. “Each of these technologies faces a different regime of laws and regulations that have been developed over the last four decades. The subcommittee will examine whether these laws are still serving the needs of consumers, content creators, broadcasters, and video distributors in the modern communications marketplace.”
Walden noted that the continued usefulness or lack thereof, and on this go-around it is discussing whether the bill should be reauthorize as is, allowed to sunset, or revised.
