The Communications Committee of the lower house passed Tuesday, December 10, a new draft submitted by Deputy Marcelo Barbieri (PMDB, São Paulo) for bill PL 256/91, originally written by Dep. Jandira Feghali (PC do B, Rio de Janeiro). The bill is designed to implement Article 221 of the Constitution, which deals with ?regionalization of cultural, artistic and news programming? on TV and radio. Amendments to the draft were made until moments before the committee voted. Dep. Bispo Wanderval (PL, São Paulo), presented suggestions from Abratel, Abert and broadcast TV networks from the floor. The bill establishes rules for broadcast regional programming as well as significant changes in the regulation of pay television. For example, it would oblige pay-TV operators to include in their lineups a channel entirely devoted to domestic cultural and educational programs, at least 60% of which would have to be supplied by independent producers. This resembles the provisions of Decree 2206/97, appended to the Cable Act by the Culture Ministry, except that now the aim is to enshrine this obligation in an act of Congress. One probable consequence will be to force the Canal Brasil movie channel (and others to be created in future) into the lineups of operators not affiliated to Net Brasil. The trouble with all this is that officially there is no blanket category of ?pay-TV operators? apart from an old type of license known as UHF Special Subscription Television. Licenses have so far been granted to cable, MMDS and DTH operators, and the legal terminology used in the bill says nothing about them.
VOD
The bill passed by the Communications Committee would also oblige video-on-demand services offered by broadcasters, pay-TV operators or Internet service providers to ensure that at least 50% of their programming is locally produced and 20% independent.
