Bishop: Hold broadcasters accountable in any new telecom law

Published: 2005-10-17

WASHINGTON (CNS) -- Broadcasters should be held accountable for their public-interest obligations to the communities they serve in any new telecommunications bill, said Bishop Gerald F. Kicanas of Tucson, Ariz., chairman of the U.S. bishops' communications committee. The Senate Commerce Committee was scheduled to begin debate Oct. 19 on several bills that would update current U.S. telecommunications law. "We ask that, in exchange for the use of tens of billions of dollars worth of new spectrum rights, broadcasters be required to put forth a substantial effort to provide programming that better serves the public," Bishop Kicanas said in a letter to Sen. Ted Stevens, R-Alaska, chairman of the Senate Commerce Committee. One of the bills would mandate that all broadcast signals now done in analog format convert to digital by 2009. Another would require cable systems to carry each of the new channels broadcasters would be able to create through digital broadcasting. The last wide-ranging rewrite of the nation's telecommunications laws took place in 1996.

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