Page 93 - Communication Commerce and Power The Political Economy of America and the Direct Broadcast Satellite

82 Communication, Commerce and Power

resisting these developments, emphasizing the economic risks involved
in establishing an international legal regime before outstanding tech-
nical questions concerning DBS capabilities were resolved. During
this period, questions concerning DBS were almost always raised in
the context of more general uses of outer space. American officials,
aware that commercial direct broadcasting plans were not being
aggressively pursued by US corporations, resisted any agreement
that potentially would have limited either the future development of
DBS or related technologies. Given this limited domestic interest, US
suggestions that DBS issues be set aside for further study at this stage
were generally accepted in UN committees as a means of not preclud-
ing anything. 32
As discussed in Chapter 3, by 1967 the capacity to develop a
transnational DBS system was widely recognized, especially through
the promotional activities of Hughes Aircraft and its efforts to sell
direct broadcasting as an educational medium for LDCs. Moreover,
the establishment of Comsat and US leadership in Intelsat, in addition
to the emerging involvement of NASA and the US Department of
Defense in the A TS satellite experiments, generated much publicity
and concern among UN delegations previously uninterested in the
seemingly distant technological applications of DBS 33 • A Czechoslo-
vakian delegate to the Outer Space Committee in 1967 suggested, for
the first time, that prospective regulations governing the use of DBS
should include 'principles that ... [the] transmission must serve the
interests of international peace and security and must respect the
sovereign equality of all states.' 34
In 1968, the COPUOS established a DBS Working Group in
response to a widespread belief that a DBS-type system could be
operational by the early 1970s. As David Blatherwick points out,

The establishment of the Working Group was a turning point and
a success for the proponents of [DBS] regulation. It provided a
dedicated platform, it institutionalized the issue and ensured its
inscription on the international agenda, and it obliged states
hitherto neutral to develop a position and declare themselves. 35

Over the course of the 1960s, therefore, the international forum for
issues concerning DBS expanded beyond the ITU into the UN. In
effect, this development served to politicize further what the United
States in particular had preferred would remain largely technical
issues concerning allocations and standards. As the only international,