The NAB’s ’spurious’ petition asking the FCC to declare that sate...

offer,” CEA said in a filing at the Commission. NAB’s arguments “merely serve the economic interests of some terrestrial broadcasters, to the detriment of satellite radio listeners nationwide,” CEA said: “Technological innovation fuels the engine of the American economy and it is the lifeblood of the consumer electronics industry.” It said the traffic and weather services offered by XM and Sirius were “a prime example of this innovation.” As of Fri., when comments were due on the NAB petition, some 25,000 XM subscribers, spurred by an XM campaign, had inundated the FCC’s electronic filing board, virtually all asking the Commission to reject the broadcasters’ arguments. Most submitted single-page comments calling the NAB out of line for trying to restrict subscription content. One commenter, Patricia Mahoney, of Alexandria, Va., said it was the first time she had ever written to the FCC on her own behalf, “not on behalf of a client,” to voice an opinion in an active Commission proceeding. Mahoney, who has represented the Satellite Industry Assn. and Iridium in other FCC dockets, said she has lived in the Washington area almost 34 years and has “never found the free over-the-air broadcast stations even collectively to offer the variety and diversity of programming that I find on XM.” Among those supporting the NAB petition was a coalition of 41 state broadcast associations that urged the FCC to require XM and Sirius “to adhere to their commitments not to offer local services.” Only “truly local broadcasters know the communities they serve and thus meet the specific needs of their communities in ways no distant satellite provider could match or be permitted to disrupt,” the groups said. The “intrusion” of satellite radio into “the local radio-community symbiosis could cause disruption, confusion and even harm to local residents who depend upon radio broadcasts for careful and accurate local services, including news and weather,” they said. Separately, the Satellite Bcstg. & Communications Assn. (SBCA) said in comments that adoption of NAB’s proposed conditions banning locally oriented programming would violate the companies’ First Amendment rights. SBCA said the ban would be sustainable only if “it was a ‘precisely-drawn means of serving a compelling state interest.’ The Commission cannot satisfy this standard in this case because among other reasons, there is simply no evidence in the record that the traffic and weather service is causing harm to terrestrial broadcasters.” The SBCA said the Commission should also dismiss requests to regulate receiver technology.