FCC Wants 5% Share for New Pay TV Services
Digital broadcasters should pay the government 5% of their gross revenues for new pay TV services such as all-movie channels or stock quotations, federal regulators decided Thursday.
No broadcaster has plans yet to offer such “ancillary” services, but the industry is just beginning to offer higher-quality digital television. By 2006 all stations must be switched to the digital format.
In 1996, when Congress set that deadline, it decided that in the digital world, television stations that charge for services beyond what they now provide must compensate taxpayers.
Congress left it to the Federal Communications Commission to decide how much.
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