Washington, D.C. - The Senate Banking Committee on Wednesday voted 19-0 in favor of the Local TV Signals Act (S.2097), which would set up a rural loan guarantee program to deliver local television signals to small and rural markets in the United States. Banking Committee Chairman Phil Gramm (R-Texas), along with Ranking Minority Member Paul Sarbanes (D-Md.) and Sen. Tim Johnson (D-S.D.), introduced an amendment in the nature of a substitute for the original bill. Gramm and other committee members said the revised bill represents a bipartisan compromise. Lawmakers agreed that one or two areas of the bill could be improved, and such improvements can be made when the bill goes before the full Senate. Gramm said the bill is designed to minimize the burden on taxpayers by ensuring that the private sector participates in any guaranteed loan, that adequate collateral is available to secure the loan, and that the rights of the federal government are protected in case of default. Changes to the bill include: 1. The Administrator of the Rural Utilities Service will prescribe regulations to implement the provisions of the act and shall do so not later than 120 days after funds authorized have been appropriated in a bill signed into law. 2. The board overseeing the program may delegate to the administrator the authority to approve loan guarantees of up to $20 million. 3. Where practicable, the board will give priority in the approval of loan guarantees under this act first to projects that will serve the greatest number of households in unserved areas; and second, to projects that will serve the greatest number of households in underserved areas. The bill defines "underserved area" as any area that is outside the Grade A contour of the local television broadcast signals; and has access to local television broadcast signals from not more than one commercial for-profit multichannel video provider. Additionally, the amount of the loan the government will guarantee was upped 10 percent to 80 percent. Gramm said, "It is a bill that is aimed at maximizing the chances that we will have access to local television signals in our more rural areas and doing it in a way in which we preserve the taxpayers' money that will be invested. A loan that is defaulted is not only a potential loss of up to $1.25 billion, but it's pretty certain that a loan that is defaulted means that the service was not provided." Sens. Conrad Burns (R-Mont.) and Richard Lugar (R-Ind.), chairman of the Senate Agriculture Committee, are also sponsors of the bill.

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Commerce Committee Chair Bliley to Retire

U.S. Rep. Tom Bliley announced Wednesday he will retire from Congress at the end of the year. Bliley, who has represented Virginia's seventh district since 1980, has been chairman of the House Commerce Committee since 1994. "I will swing the gavel at the Commerce Committee to the last hour of this session, there is still work to be done," Bliley said. Bliley said the committee will continue its work to strengthen the foundations of the Internet and the digital economy and will continue to work to improve health care. Satellite TV industry leaders said Bliley's goals for achieving competition and consumer choice for television will be remembered. SBCA President Chuck Hewitt said, "Bliley's efforts to create competition helped many consumers get the right to choose who they receive their multichannel video programming from, thereby increasing the satellite TV industry's status as a competitor to cable." "Chairman Bliley has left his mark on the industry and we are grateful for his service," Hewitt said. EchoStar CEO and Chairman Charlie Ergen said Bliley "has been a consistent champion for the consumer's right to have a competitive choice in television viewing, particularly during the debates over the recently passed Satellite Home Viewer Improvement Act." Ergen added that, "Chairman Bliley has never been afraid of making room for the little guy."

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DirecTV Para Todos In Six More Cities

DirecTV Para Todos, the Spanish-language programming service from the Hughes-backed DBS company, is launching this week in six new cities including New York, the nation's second largest Hispanic market with more than 3.5 million Latino residents. In addition to the New York City area, the service is being introduced in Chicago, Denver, Albuquerque, San Antonio and McAllen/Brownsville, Texas. This week, DirecTV unveiled its first nationwide advertising campaign for DirecTV Para Todos. Commercials are appearing on Univision, the country's leading Spanish-language television broadcast network, and other national television and cable networks. DirecTV Para Todos debuted last October and has been introduced in 16 markets, including Miami, Houston, San Francisco/San Jose, Dallas, El Paso, San Diego, Fresno, Sacramento, Phoenix and Los Angeles.

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OpenTV Gets Panasonic

OpenTV, supplier of interactive TV software, is partnering with Matsushita Electric Industrial, the consumer electronics company best known outside Japan for its Panasonic brand name. Through the alliance, Panasonic and OpenTV will develop a multimedia home platform (MHP) extension to the OpenTV operating system. The MHP extension offers interoperability between services, set-top boxes and television networks. In addition, it will give OpenTV-powered set-top boxes the ability to receive MHP-compliant interactive programming in addition to OpenTV-based interactive content. Hardware and software should be available in 2001.

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INTL: BSkyB Gets Another Soccer Club Stake

BSkyB Gets Another Soccer Club Stake - British Sky Broadcasting bought a 9.9 percent stake in the Chelsea soccer club for $64 million. The deal gives the company stakes in four English Premier League teams. BSkyB also owns 9.9 percent of Manchester United, 9.08 percent of Leeds United and 5 percent of Sunderland. NDS Partners For Chinese Deal - News Corp.'s NDS unit and Legend Computer Systems will jointly create a Legend branded digital set-top box for the Chinese market. The co-developed digital set-top box will enable reception of digital broadcast and broadband services, and will be designed for the delivery of pay television, advanced multimedia and interactive broadcasting applications.