DISSENTING STATEMENT OF
COMMISSIONER JONATHAN S. ADELSTEIN
Re:  General Motors Corporation and Hughes Electronics Corporation, Transferors, and The 
News Corporation Limited, Transferee, MB Docket No. 03-124
The Commission should have required DirecTV to provide real local-into-local service, 
meaning every local broadcast television signal, over satellite to all 210 television markets across 
the country. As I correctly observed five years ago, 
News Corp has no intention of ever providing real local-into-local satellite 
service to every market in the country.  A close examination of their 
commitments revealed them to mean that they consider it enough to offer some 
reasonably close local station as part of an undefined “local channel package”, or 
simply add a digital tuner in the box in smaller markets and hope the customer 
can receive a signal.  For those who live in outlying rural areas, tough luck.  
What could have been the most important public interest benefit of this merger 
turns out to be nothing more than a sham, and the Commission is going along 
with it, no questions asked.
Accordingly, because of the FCC’s unwillingness to take a hard look at media consolidation and 
to promote longstanding policy goals of the Communications Act, such as localism for all 
American communities, I dissent.