Saying PTV’s efforts since 1999 to reach voluntary digital carria...
Saying PTV’s efforts since 1999 to reach voluntary digital carriage agreements with cable operators “regretfully” had resulted so far only in carriage deal with Time Warner, Assn. of Public TV Stations (APTS) called for congressional intervention if voluntary industry…
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resolutions aren’t achieved very soon. Current FCC rules that are “focused solely on broadcast construction deadlines and service rules” alone won’t lead to timely or successful digital conversion, group said, and industries critical to transition such as cable and equipment manufacturers must do their part. Calling for “limited, tailored, transitional” digital carriage requirement, APTS said 70% of households received local TV stations over cable, so it was not “remotely possible” to attain 85% DTV penetration level set by Congress to trigger the analog spectrum give-back without cable digital carriage during transition. In addition to reiterating its demand for clarification of primary video as meaning all free over-air signals, APTS called for setting requirement that all TV sets 13” and larger included DTV receivers. If left to market forces, DTV penetration would reach only 8.5% by 2006, it said, quoting study by Arthur D. Little. Study said that if all sets sold after Jan. 2004 had digital receiver, penetration would reach 75.5% by 2006 and incremental cost to equip sets with DTV tuners would be $8.40 per set.