Telecommunications Act of 1996

The Telecommunications Act of 1996 (Govtrack) was the first major overhaul of telecommunications law in 60 years and included major concessions to the broadcast industry. In the bill, lawmakers limited eligibility for DTV licenses to existing broadcasters. In addition, Congress and the FCC provided each broadcaster with a second six MHz spectrum license, effectively doubling their spectrum holdings. The idea was to allow broadcasters to offer analog and digital signals on two separate channels during a transition period and when enough consumers made the switch, broadcasters would return their analog channels and roll out enhanced programming such as HDTV or multicasting on the digital channels. (DTV signals can't be received through the existing analog broadcasting infrastructure, known as NTSC).

The consumer activist Ralph Nader referred to these concessions as "one of the single biggest giveaways in U.S. corporate welfare history." The spectrum was estimated to be worth between $11 billion and $70 billion. Even the onetime GOP presidential candidate, former Sen. Bob Dole, R-Kansas, came out vehemently against the handout: "We don't give away trees to newspaper publishers. Why should we give away more airwaves to broadcasters?" he wrote in a 1997 editorial published in The New York Times. "The airwaves are a natural resource. They do not belong to the broadcasters, phone companies or any other industry. They belong to the American people."

Related SourceWatch resources

 * See the other articles at the Telecom, Media and Intellectual Property Policy (U.S.) portal.
 * See the related Congresspedia article on Digital television.
 * See the related Congresspedia article on Spectrum.

External Resources

 * Lennard Kruger, The Digital TV Transition: A Brief Overview Congressional Research Service, Aug. 12, 2005.
 * Lennard Kruger, Digital Television: An Overview Congressional Research Service, updated Jan. 23, 2007.