TAB Advances DC Agenda with Texas Members of Congress

- AM Radio, Music Royalties, NextGen TV + Crystal Winners

A dozen Texas Radio and TV broadcasters met with Texas members of Congress last week in the nation's capital to advocate for the industry's agenda on legislative and regulatory matters, including AM Radio, music royalties and Next Generation Television.

TAB's delegation were among the nearly 600 broadcasters who attended the NAB's annual State Leadership Conference from across the country, with two of them also garnering much-coveted Crystal Radio Awards for outstanding community service.

Ben Downs with Bryan Broadcasting won for KNDE-FM Candy 95 Bryan-College Station, while Travis Moon with Radio One in Houston earned an award for KGLK-FM The Eagle.

Pictured (left to right): Ben Downs, Bryan Broadcasting; John Moesch, Brazos Communications West; Travis Moon, Radio One; Gerry Schlegel, LKCM Media Group; Sarah Frazier, Audacy; Pat Stacey, Gray Media Group; Oscar Rodriguez, Texas Association of Broadcasters; Tony Canales, NBC5/Telemundo; Luis Villarreal, Gray Media Group; Valerie Guyton, TEGNA; Maurice Potts, Radio One

AM Radio, Music Royalties

With Texas second only to California in the number of co-sponsors for the AM Radio for Every Vehicle Act (24 to 33, respectively), TAB pressed its bipartisan co-sponsors to push House leadership on both sides of the aisle for a vote in the coming days.

The measure has the support of 317 House members out of 435 total, meaning that a floor vote should sail through. Once that happens, the Senate - where Texas' own Sen. Ted Cruz is the Republican co-author of the bill - will be positioned to schedule precious floor time to take up the legislation and advance it to President Trump for final enactment.

The TAB delegation also sought to shore up support for HConRes 12, the Local Radio Freedom Act, which opposes forcing local Radio broadcasters to pay a new performance royalty - which NAB has branded a Performance Tax. The new royalty would be in addition to the hundreds of millions of dollars stations across the country collectively pay already to songwriters, musicians, composers and performers through performance rights organizations such as ASCAP, BMI, GMR, SESAC and SoundExchange.

Texas leads the country in the number of co-sponsors for the Local Radio Freedom Act with 24 of the 225 co-sponsors - a solid majority of the House - but two Texas representatives, Lance Gooden, R-Terrell, and Lloyd Doggett, D-Austin, are among the 13 lawmakers co-sponsoring the deceptively named American Music Fairness Act which would create a Performance Tax.

NextGen TV

Encouraging the FCC to finally approve ATSC 3.0, the new technical standard for broadcast television called Next Generation Television, or "NextGen TV", was the top ask on the TV agenda.

Lawmakers were asked to sign onto a letter to FCC Chairman Brendan Carr and Commissioners Olivia Trusty and Anna Gomez supporting the final adoption of NextGen TV which would enable local TV broadcasters to provide viewers a vast array of advanced services free of charge which would help them better compete with Pay-TV services.

One key benefit is the new Broadcast Positioning System (BPS) which broadcasters have developed as a reliable, complementary service to the Global Positioning System (GPS) which has become vulnerable to military adversaries in space and terrestrial cybersecurity attacks.

Questions? Contact Oscar Rodriguez or call (512) 322-9944.