Sponsors
The bill improves satellite TV access and reduces service disruptions for certain rural Wisconsin counties but shifts negotiating leverage away from nearby local broadcasters, risking higher fees or reduced local programming for viewers.
Residents of the listed Wisconsin counties (largely rural communities) will be able to receive adjacent‑market network broadcast signals via satellite without those subscribers counting toward the carrier’s existing in‑market subscriber limit, increasing access to network TV where a local affiliate is absent.
Satellite carriers serving those counties can more easily offer and maintain service, reducing the risk of network blackouts or loss of service in areas that lack an in‑state local affiliate and easing service delivery for state officials and local emergency communications.
Local broadcasters in adjacent markets may lose retransmission bargaining leverage and face reduced carriage revenue because some viewers will be served via adjacent‑market satellite signals rather than local carriage agreements.
Consumers and taxpayers in the affected areas could face higher costs or less local programming if broadcasters respond to reduced leverage by raising carriage fees or restricting content to protect revenue.
Based on analysis of 3 sections of legislative text.
Allows subscribers in specified Wisconsin counties to choose in‑State, adjacent‑market network retransmissions and exempts those retransmissions from certain retransmission and satellite carriage limits.
Introduced September 4, 2025 by Tony Wied · Last progress September 4, 2025
Allows cable and satellite customers in 13 named Wisconsin counties to choose receiving an in‑State, adjacent‑market network station signal instead of the local network station signal. The bill treats those adjacent‑market signals as satisfying retransmission and satellite‑carriage rules, exempts certain cable retransmissions from retransmission‑consent limits, and requires satellite carriage only when technically feasible as determined by the FCC. The measure adds a new provision to the Communications Act and changes parts of federal copyright law (17 U.S.C. §§119 and 122) to define covered counties and the new category of “in‑State, adjacent‑market network station retransmission,” and to exclude such retransmissions from existing satellite subscriber‑count limits for those counties.