Haley Stevens: “Many of us worked very hard last year to reauthorize and update the Satellite Home Viewer Act. Our principle…”

“Many of us worked very hard last year to reauthorize and update the Satellite Home Viewer Act. Our principle accomplishment was to authorize satellite carriers to provide local television stations to their subscribers. This change has already spurred enormous growth in the satellite industry and is providing growing competition to the cable industry. Unfortunately, the satellite providers--Echostar and DirecTV--made it very clear that their business plans did not contemplate serving rural areas. They were very busy, and they were very upfront in telling us that they were focusing their energies on the top 40 television markets. So it was clear to Senators like myself who represent rural States that local-into-local was not going to be a reality unless we took additional action to encourage coverage for the 50 percent of the population that could watch the service being offered in television ads, but couldn't pick up the phone and order it. We still see a lot of 'not available in Alaska and Hawaii' fine print on advertisements. They plagued us during telephone days, and now they are plaguing us in this period of rapid extension of new technology. That is where the idea was born to provide loan guarantees to help make this service more available to more Americans. All of us owe Senator Conrad Burns a debt of gratitude for pushing this issue so hard and for drafting the measure that was included in last year's satellite bill. That provision was dropped.”