Some Stations Can’t Switch to DTV; FCC Members Fear More

The three FCC commissioners said they're concerned about the situation. They sought extra money from the Commerce Department so queries about the transition to 888-CALL-FCC can be handled in a timely manner, before callers hang up. FCC Chief Information Officer Andrew Martin estimated the FCC needs another $10 million for that to occur, in addition to its $30 million budget to field inquiries.

The NTIA Tuesday asked Commerce Secretary Gary Locke to notify the House and Senate Appropriations committees that the department will dip into the $90 million allotted by Congress for DTV education to help pay for the FCC’s phone bank, NTIA official Bernadette McGuire-Rivera told the meeting. Commissioner Robert McDowell asked her when Locke will approve the request and send it to Congress, which must be notified five days in advance of the money being transferred. “That is way above my pay grade,” replied McGuire-Rivera, an NTIA associate administrator. “A call wouldn’t hurt.” An NTIA spokesman didn’t reply to a message asking if the funding notification was made to lawmakers.

Commissioners asked more broadcasters to run so-called analog nightlight operations so viewers in all markets can get emergency information and learn about DTV via analog broadcasts for up to 30 days after June 12. At least one TV station in markets with 69 percent of homes in the 192 markets that haven’t already gone all-digital will run such operations, Gore told the meeting. Viewers who won’t have access to such a service are “a pretty substantial amount of the population,” said Commissioner Jonathan Adelstein. “I would beg people to do it.”

Broadcast officials said they're asking more stations to participate. “We literally are going through station by station to urge participation in this program,” said President David Donovan of the Association for Maximum Service Television. In some markets, there are “no options available” for such service. President Larry Sidman of the Association for Public Television Stations said he'd see if more members would run nightlight operations, although many have already terminated analog operations.

Adelstein and McDowell told reporters they fear more stations will follow those owned by Equity Media Holdings, owner of 17 stations not making the transition. “I'm concerned whenever any broadcast station goes dark or shuts its operations down,” which is “a loss for the American people,” said acting Chairman Michael Copps. An executive at Equity Media, which filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in December, didn’t reply to a message. Three of its stations that lack full digital facilities are Fox affiliates, in Butte, Great Falls and Missoula, Mont. The rest are affiliated with non-Big Four networks and spread through the U.S.

“It’s almost a perfect storm for the broadcasting industry” because of the recession and the cost to switch to digital, Adelstein said. “I'm not sure it’s the last we are going to hear” of such news “unless this economy turns around very quickly.” McDowell fears “this is just the very beginning of some bad news coming over the horizon” since TV stations get about 30 percent of ad revenue from auto dealers, and thousands of the retailers are closing: “I think this will cause a new wave of pain for broadcasters across the country.” -- Jonathan Make

DTV Notebook …

Consumer electronic industry officials said there should be enough digital converter boxes for those making the transition before June 12 and for procrastinators. “Some of our members are concerned about converter box supply -- they are concerned that they have too many boxes on hand,” said Executive Director Chris McLean of the Consumer Electronics Retailers Coalition, whose members include Best Buy, RadioShack and Wal-Mart. “Manufacturers and retailers will continue to meet consumer demand” for boxes and antennas, said economist Shawn DuBravac of the CEA. “We don’t foresee any shortages through the remainder of” NTIA’s converter box coupon program, which will stop taking requests for vouchers July 31.

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Although viewers who haven’t ordered an NTIA digital converter box coupon already may not get them in time for the digital transition, they shouldn’t wait any longer, government officials said. “Anybody who thinks the transition is not taking place on June 12th ought to wake up and smell the converter box,” said acting FCC Chairman Michael Copps.

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The FCC got Office of Management and Budget clearance for the information collection requirements part of the commission’s order approving the use of translator stations for full-power digital broadcasters. A Tuesday Federal Register notice from the FCC said OMB gave six-month approval for the rules. They take effect June 19, as expected (CED May 22 p7).

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Panasonic will be taking toll-free calls and answering questions about the DTV transition for an hour Thursday, it said. It will take questions over the phone and show them live online at its livinginhd.com site. It put DTV switchover information on the site, including instructional videos about connecting DTV converter boxes to analog sets, antenna choices and general DTV information.

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ABI Research expects HD set-top box shipments to drop after 2009, though they'll be helped by a series of rolling DTV switchovers in various countries around the world in 2010, it said. By then ABI expects HD set-tops to account for 30 percent of all set-top shipments. Increasingly, those boxes will be equipped to support MPEG-4 encoding, ABI said. “MPEG-4 and in some cases HD are becoming sufficiently inexpensive that some operators will be providing them to their customers by default,” said Michael Inouye, an analyst with ABI.

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Communication Services for the Deaf got an almost three- week extension from the FCC of a contract (CED Feb 10 p7) to field DTV queries from those with hearing and sight problems, a CSD spokesman said Wednesday. The contract, initially awarded in January, had been set, before Congress delayed the transition, to expire May 31. It’s now good through June 30, CSD said.

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Cable and consumer electronics industries both found something to like in a first-of-its-kind FCC waiver Tuesday (CED June 3 p8) letting a set-top box manufacturer sell two models that don’t use CableCARDs. The waiver order for Evolution Broadband is “extremely narrow” and only covers “the most basic set-top boxes,” a CEA spokeswoman said Wednesday. The order “makes abundantly clear that the commission’s rules are designed to provide for national portability of navigation devices” bought by subscribers from retailers, she said, and the commission offered “clear support” for the CableCARD standard. The waiver lets small cable operators go all-digital more quickly because they can use set-tops costing less than $50 apiece, said President Matt Polka of the American Cable Association. Cable’s own digital transition “will be far less costly” for customers as a result, he said in a late Tuesday news release.