[Congressional Bills 103th Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
[H.R. 971 Introduced in House (IH)]

103d CONGRESS
  1st Session
                                H. R. 971

To require the Federal Communications Commission to initiate rulemaking 
 proceedings to improve multilingual radio broadcasting, and for other 
                               purposes.


_______________________________________________________________________


                    IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

                           February 18, 1993

 Mr. Engel (for himself and Mr. Manton) introduced the following bill; 
       which was referred to the Committee on Energy and Commerce

_______________________________________________________________________

                                 A BILL


 
To require the Federal Communications Commission to initiate rulemaking 
 proceedings to improve multilingual radio broadcasting, and for other 
                               purposes.

    Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the 
United States of America in Congress assembled,

SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE.

    This Act may be cited as the ``Multilingual Radio Act''.

SEC. 2. FINDINGS.

    The Congress finds that--
            (1) there are large populations of United States residents 
        whose assimilation as citizens would be eased by access to 
        information on employment opportunities, cultural affairs, 
        governmental services, and general public affairs;
            (2) radio broadcasting provides an accessible and 
        convenient method to meet this public need;
            (3) there are no current assurances of future broadcast 
        services of this nature to such multilingual, multiethnic 
        populations; and
            (4) authority should be granted to the Federal 
        Communications Commission to enable it to establish at least 
        three demonstration frequencies for the purpose of providing 
        multilingual, multiethnic broadcasting services to the 
        substantial diverse populations of the designated metropolitan 
        areas.

SEC. 3. RULEMAKING ON MULTILINGUAL BROADCASTING DEMONSTRATION 
              FREQUENCIES REQUIRED.

    The Federal Communications Commission shall, within 60 days after 
the date of enactment of this Act, begin a rulemaking proceeding to 
prescribe such regulations as may be necessary--
            (1) to establish demonstration frequencies for the purpose 
        of providing multilingual amplitude modulation radio 
        broadcasting services to large metropolitan areas with large 
        multilingual populations;
            (2) to require that such a demonstration frequency be 
        licensed in the New York City metropolitan area;
            (3) to create other demonstration frequencies, if possible, 
        for other cities in which the Commission by rule finds that 
        large multilingual populations would be benefited by 
        multilingual radio broadcasting;
            (4) to make such frequencies available for expanded 
        services through the use of that portion of the amplitude 
        modulated radio band between 1605 kHz and 1705kHz;
            (5) to require that the licensee of such a multilingual 
        operation--
                    (A) to devote at least 75 percent of each broadcast 
                day to programming in at least 5 languages other than 
                English;
                    (B) to program in at least 20 languages other than 
                English during any broadcast week; and
                    (C) to carry at least one hour of English language 
                instructional programming during each broadcast day.

SEC. 4. LICENSE AWARD.

    The Commission shall establish the demonstration frequencies 
described in section 3 as not-for-profit operations and award the 
license for such frequencies by comparative hearing to nonprofit groups 
with substantial experience in serving the unique needs of multilingual 
and multiethnic communities. The public service orientation of this 
broadcast service shall be reflected in the experience of the licensee. 
Not-for-profit status and experience with multilingual and multiethnic 
broadcasting shall be given weight equal to any other comparative 
criteria used by the Commission.

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