DirecTV to Miss June Date for Alaska, Hawaii Broadcasts
DirecTV won’t meet a June 8 deadline to be carrying all free-over-the-air broadcast signals, including multicast and high definition (HD), for stations serving Alaska and Hawaii, it told the FCC last week. DirecTV’s satellite constellation can’t handle the mandate, the company said. “The satellite capacity required to serve just these two states will increase by 389%,” DirecTV Senior Vp Susan Eid wrote in a May 2 letter made available Mon. DirecTV carries all local stations in Alaska and Hawaii in standard definition digital, she said. The Satellite Home Viewer Extension & Reauthorization Act (SHVERA) “does not expressly require either high definition or multicast carriage in Alaska and Hawaii,” she added.
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DirecTV petitioned 18-plus months ago for reconsideration of Commission implementation of SHVERA, said Eid. If the FCC doesn’t reverse its decision, “DirecTV will have to forego the initiation of local service in at least five other markets,” she said. For DirecTV to be serving Alaska and Hawaii as ordered by June 8 would mean “severely” cutting national and local programming in the lower 48, she said: “Millions of DirecTV subscribers would lose access to local and national programming upon which they have come to rely, including access to news and emergency information.”
DirecTV’s problems were compounded by the Jan. SeaLaunch failure (CD Feb 1 p14), delaying DirecTV 11’s launch until early 2008, said Eid. DirecTV 11 has spot beams to retransmit digital signals originating in Alaska and Hawaii, she said: “Once DirecTV 11 becomes operational, DirecTV will be better able to provide local-into-local digital service in Alaska and Hawaii.” DirecTV 10 is expected to launch later this year, will take on HD programming now carried on DirecTV’s Spaceway satellite; DirecTV is seeing if it can use Spaceway capacity for digital local-into-local broadcasting for Alaska and Hawaii, Eid said.