South Carolina General Assembly
117th Session, 2007-2008

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Indicates Matter Stricken
Indicates New Matter

S. 989

STATUS INFORMATION

General Bill
Sponsors: Senators Peeler, Reese, Fair and Pinckney
Document Path: l:\council\bills\dka\3420dw08.doc
Companion/Similar bill(s): 4374

Introduced in the Senate on January 15, 2008
Currently residing in the Senate Committee on Judiciary

Summary: Cable Antidiscrimination and Dispute Resolution Act

HISTORY OF LEGISLATIVE ACTIONS

     Date      Body   Action Description with journal page number
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
   1/15/2008  Senate  Introduced and read first time SJ-15
   1/15/2008  Senate  Referred to Committee on Judiciary SJ-15
   1/29/2008  Senate  Referred to Subcommittee: Rankin (ch), Ford, Scott, 
                        Campbell

View the latest legislative information at the LPITS web site

VERSIONS OF THIS BILL

1/15/2008

(Text matches printed bills. Document has been reformatted to meet World Wide Web specifications.)

A BILL

TO AMEND THE CODE OF LAWS OF SOUTH CAROLINA, 1976, BY ADDING ARTICLE 5 TO CHAPTER 12, TITLE 58 SO AS TO ENACT THE "CABLE ANTIDISCRIMINATION AND DISPUTE RESOLUTION ACT OF 2008", TO PROVIDE DEFINITIONS, PROHIBIT DISCRIMINATION BY A CABLE OPERATOR WHEN PROVIDING PROGRAMMING WHICH COMPETES IN THE SAME PROGRAMMING CATEGORY OF ANOTHER OPERATOR, AND TO PROVIDE A PROCEDURE FOR RESOLVING DISPUTES.

Be it enacted by the General Assembly of the State of South Carolina:

SECTION    1.    Chapter 12, Title 58 of the 1976 Code is amend by adding:

"Article 5

Cable Television Antidiscrimination and Dispute Resolution

Act of 2008

Section 58-12-610.    As used in this article:

(1)    'AAA' means the American Arbitration Association.

(2)    'Cable operator' has the same meaning as set forth in 47 U.S.C. Section 522(5), but for the purposes of this article, also includes:

(a)    a multichannel video programming distributor, as it is defined in 47 U.S.C. Section 522(13); and

(b)    an affiliate or subsidiary of the cable operator or multichannel video programming distributor.

(3)    'Competing cable programmer' means a person who engages in the production, creation, or wholesale distribution of video programming that is not affiliated with a cable operator and that offers a cable programming channel that competes in the same programming category as a cable programming channel owned by a cable operator.

(4)    'Extended basic service' means a category of cable service provided by a cable operator that immediately is superior, in terms of price and number of channels, to an offering of basic cable service, as it is defined in 47 U.S.C. Section 522(3).

(5)    'Final offer' means a submission in the form of a contract for carriage of the programming for a period of at least three years.

(6)    'Affiliated' means:

(a)    to control, or be controlled by, or to be under common ownership or control with, a cable operator;

(b)    an ownership interest, voting or nonvoting, in an entity held by a cable operator in a cable programming channel, and debt or other instrument that is convertible to an ownership interest; and

(c)    a financial interest that enables a cable operator to benefit from the financial performance of the cable programming channel.

(7)    'Programming category' means programming that predominantly contains one of the following types of information:

(a)    sports;

(b)    news and public affairs;

(c)    entertainment; or

(d)    an additional category that the arbitrator may identify.

(8)    'Programming channel' means programming generally considered comparable in terms of signal quality and other features to programming provided by television broadcast station.

Section    58-12-620.    (A)    A vertically integrated cable operator that carries on its extended basic tier a programming channel that it owns has a duty to treat in a fair, reasonable, and nondiscriminatory manner a cable programming channel that competes in the same programming category with the cable operator's owned programming channel.

(B)    If a competing cable programmer has reason to believe that it has not been treated in a fair, reasonable, and nondiscriminatory manner concerning carriage of a competing programming channel, then it may submit a request for commercial arbitration with the vertically integrated cable operator over the terms and conditions of carriage ninety days after a first time request for carriage or renewal of a carriage agreement. If the dispute remains unresolved ten days after submission of the request for arbitration, then either party may file with the AAA filing a final offer. The AAA shall notify the other party of the demand for arbitration, and submit to the other party the final offer submitted by the initiating party, and five days after receipt of the notice from the AAA, the other party shall submit its response on price, but not terms and conditions, to the AAA.

(C)(1)    The arbitration must be decided by a single arbitrator under the expedited procedures of the commercial arbitration rules, then in effect, of the AAA. The arbitrator shall conduct a 'baseball style' arbitration, which means that it shall choose the cash price, with no other consideration being considered of the party that most closely approximates the fair market value of the programming carriage rights at issue, and shall use the terms and conditions and form of the contract of the initiating party.

(2)    To determine fair market value, the arbitrator may consider any relevant evidence, and may require the parties to submit on a confidential basis evidence to the extent that it is in their actual possession or control, including, but not limited to:

(a)(i)    current or previous contracts between the competing cable programmer and other cable operators in which the vertically integrated cable operator does and does not have an interest as well as offers made in those negotiations; and

(ii)    current or previous contracts for the affiliated channel with other cable operators, including related and integrated carriage or other arrangements for the affiliated programming channel;

(b)    price, terms, and conditions that the competing cable programmer has for carriage with other cable operators;

(c)    evidence of the relative value, such as ratings and advertising rates, of the competing cable programming compared to the affiliated programming channel being carried by the vertically integrated cable operator;

(d)    the extent of national carriage of the competing cable programming;

(e)    other evidence of the value of competing cable programming;

(f)    whether the affiliated cable programmer and competing cable programmer in the past five years have pursued the same programming from third parties; and

(g)    but may not consider offers before the arbitration made by the competing cable programmer or the vertically integrated cable operator.

(3)    Judgment upon an award by the arbitrator may be entered by any court having competent jurisdiction over the matter. If the arbitrator finds that one party's conduct during the course of the arbitration has been unreasonable, the arbitrator may assess all or a portion of the other party's costs and expenses, including attorney's fees, against the offending party."

SECTION    2.    This act takes effect upon approval by the Governor.

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