Amendment to HR 2799, the "Commerce, Justice, State, and the Judiciary Appropriations, 2004", offered by Rep. Maurice Hinchey (R-NY).
Re: FCC media ownership rules.
Date: July 22, 2003.
Disposition: The House rejected this amendment by a vote of 174-254. See, Roll Call No. 407.

H.R. 2799

Offered By: Mr. Hinchey

AMENDMENT NO. 2: At the end of the bill (before the title), insert the following new title:

TITLE VII--ADDITIONAL GENERAL PROVISIONS

SEC. . None of the funds made available in this Act to the Federal Communications Commission may be expended to grant, transfer, or assign any license for any broadcast station if--

(1) the party (including all parties under common control) to which such license would be granted, transferred, or assigned directly or indirectly owns, operates or controls a daily newspaper and the grant, transfer, or assignment of such license will result in:

(A) the predicted or measured 2 mV/m contour of an AM station, computed in accordance with 47 CFR 73.183 or 73.186, encompassing the entire community in which such newspaper is published;

(B) the predicted 1 mV/m contour for an FM station, computed in accordance with 47 CFR 73.313, encompassing the entire community in which such newspaper is published; or

(C) the Grade A contour of a TV station, computed in accordance with 47 CFR 73.684, encompassing the entire community in which such newspaper is published; or

(2) as a result of such grant, transfer, or assignment an entity would directly or indirectly own, operate, or control two television stations licensed in the same Designated Market Area (DMA) (as determined by Nielsen Media Research or any successor entity), unless--

(A) the Grade B contours of the stations (as determined by 47 CFR 73.684) do not overlap; or

(B)(i) at the time the application to acquire or construct the station is filed, at least one of the stations is not ranked among the top four stations in the DMA, based on the most recent all-day (9:00 a.m.-midnight) audience share, as measured by Nielsen Media Research or by any comparable professional, accepted audience ratings service; and

(ii) at least 8 independently owned and operating, full-power commercial and noncommercial TV stations would remain post-merger in the television market in which the communities of license of the TV stations in question are located and--

(I) count only those stations the Grade B signal contours of which overlap with the Grade B signal contour of at least one of the stations in the proposed combination; but

(II) in areas where there is no Nielsen DMA, count the TV stations present in an area that would be the functional equivalent of a TV market and count only those TV stations the Grade B signal contours of which overlap with the Grade B signal contour of at least one of the stations in the proposed combination.