PTV STATIONS, CABLE OPERATORS PURSUE DTV CARRIAGE DEALS

Voluntary commercial carriage deals, patterned after agreement in principle that Time Warner Cable signed with PBS and APTS, would ensure that cable operators offered PTV multicast and HDTV programming in their markets during DTV transition. That means that public broadcasters would gain distribution of their PBS Kids channel, school instructional programming, adult continuing education, job training, college courses and other proposed multicast services, as well as their prime-time HDTV programming. APTS Chmn. Beth Courtney told House Telecom Subcommittee last month that more than 95% of public stations planned to offer at least one formal educational multicast service, and 75% to provide 2 or more.

MSOs would carry PTV digital programming on their own negotiated terms without having to offer DTV signals of every public station in their markets. In Time Warner’s case, for example, MSO now carries digital signals of 7 PBS stations in 6 major cable markets -- Albany, N.Y., Columbia, S.C., Houston, Kansas City, Minneapolis and Raleigh -- offering 2 PTV digital feeds only in Minneapolis. “Obviously, we think it’s a good deal for us,” Time Warner Cable spokesman said. “It’s very similar to the deals we did with the commercial networks [ABC, CBS and NBC].” Agreement calls for Time Warner eventually to carry digital signals of up to 140 public stations covering 12% of U.S. TV households.

In move to bolster efforts for cable carriage of PTV digital signals, PBS appointed Jennifer Browning, senior adviser to Pres. Pat Mitchell, to newly created position of senior dir. of digital cable and DBS strategy. Browning will lead interdepartmental team at PBS in collaboration with APTS to negotiate digital carriage agreements with cable and DBS providers. PBS is “dedicating more resources” to ensure that public will have access to expanded programming and educational services on their local PTV stations’ digital signals, Exec. Vp-Member Affairs Wayne Godwin said.

Start of serious PTV-cable negotiations follows private presentation by PBS and APTS leaders to NCTA board last week. Both cable and PTV officials said digital programming business plan, delivered by Mitchell and APTS Pres. John Lawson, scored points with top MSO executives. “They make a good case,” Sachs said. Another source said: “The PBS people set up a nice little structure.”

Lawson told us no specific carriage proposals were made to NCTA board. At meeting with board executive committee, he said “we described our state and local educational services” and pushed for Time Warner-type carriage agreements with other MSOs. He said public broadcasters didn’t seek commitment from NCTA itself “because we understand NCTA is not in a position to do this.” PTV executives also argued that surveys indicated that education was main factor driving sales of PCs and Internet access so PTV education-related services could help boost penetration of digital cable set-top boxes.

Asked whether Time Warner had agreed to carry all of PTV’s multicast digital channels in its markets, Lawson would say only that agreement “provided for substantial carriage” of digital streams of PTV stations. As to whether such deals with cable operators would obviate need for digital must-carry rules, he said “we are keeping our powder dry on the issue.” However, if public broadcasters could reach agreements with other MSOs on lines of one with Time Warner, “it would allow us to drop a regulatory approach to carriage.”

APTS spokeswoman said public broadcasters had made digital carriage “overtures” to such MSOs as AT&T and Cox as well, but no formal negotiations had begun. She also declined to divulge details of Time Warner carriage deal, which called for 80% of PTV stations in MSO’s markets to sign agreement before it became binding. But she said Time Warner had agreed to “carry all our programs as long as they were related to our mission.” MSO also agreed to carry analog signals of PTV stations during digital transition, she said.

Carriage talks come after public broadcasters conducted extensive lobbying campaign for DTV must-carry requirements. In hearings in Congress and filings with FCC, public broadcasters have demanded cable carriage of all of PTV’s digital multicast streams and dual analog/digital carriage during DTV transition. In House Telecom Subcommittee testimony last month, for example, Courtney argued that FCC’s tentative ruling against dual-carriage requirements in Jan. was “unwarranted and will have serious public policy consequences.”

Pressing cable’s argument against analog and digital dual- carriage requirements at Media Institute lunch in Washington Wed., Sachs said more voluntary carriage deals between MSOs and PTV stations were likely “because public TV has a vision for using its digital spectrum.” In contrast, he contended, “most commercial broadcasters don’t have a business plan for how to use their free digital spectrum.” He said commercial broadcasters, with “notable exception” of CBS, “are doing little or no HDTV, and some broadcasters, like Paxson Communications, see spectrum as valuable ‘beachfront property’ to be auctioned by them to wireless companies.”

Sachs also used Media Institute forum to declare that broadcasters no longer deserved special treatment in communications policy because of fundamental shifts in electronic media landscape over last decade. With cable in 69 million homes and DBS in another 15 million, he said, only 15% of public still receives broadcast signals over-the-air. He also said each of 4 major broadcast network owners now had stakes in at least dozen cable networks and that commonly-owned broadcast and cable networks now shared programming, promotion, management.

“I believe it means that the special status broadcasting has held in First Amendment policy debates -- debates like must-carry -- is disappearing,” Sachs said. “When Americans turn to CNN, Fox Cable News, CNBC and C-SPAN for news and public affairs, to Nickelodeon and Disney for kids programs, to History and Discovery for documentaries and NewsChannel 8 or New York 1 for local coverage, the public service rationale for special treatment of broadcasting is all but gone.” Adding that “broadcasting’s not the unique service it was even 10 years ago,” he contended that “it should not be entitled to special treatment under the First Amendment, especially when special treatment shuts out the speech of others.”