FCC SEEKS MORE DETAILS ON DTV TRANSITION FROM INDUSTRY PLAYERS

The letter also asks for each of the network’s plans for high-definition or other digital programming in the next year, current efforts at developing digital programming and other digital services and details on any efforts they're making to promote DTV offerings. The bureau asked for responses from each of the industry players within 30 days.

In letters to network affiliates in the top 100 markets, Ferree asks whether each station is on the air with a digital signal, as well as about the digital equipment being used, the approximate cost of constructing DTV facilities, and the percentage of the analog service population being served by the digital signals. The letter asks, among other things, whether the stations have the equipment necessary to pass through the networks’ digital signal without degradation and whether the signals are being carried by cable.

Of cable operators, the FCC wants to know which of their cable systems are part of their commitment to carry DTV signals and how many subscribers each system has, as well as which systems weren’t subject to the MSOs’ pledge. The Commission wants to know which HDTV or other “value-added” services actually are being carried on each system on tiers and the cost to consumers for those services. The letters to Adelphia, AOL-Time Warner, CableOne, Cablevision, Charter, Comcast, Cox, Insight and Mediacom ask which analog and digital signals are being carried on each system and which are must-carry and which are under retransmission consent agreements. The FCC wants to know why in each case. The agency asks for details on each of the MSOs’ plans for programming, the status of procuring HD set-top boxes with digital connectors and efforts to promote HDTV.

The FCC asked DBS providers whether they were carrying 5 digital programming services providing HD or other “value- added” services in at least 50% of their prime-time schedule and the cost to consumers for those services. The agency wonders whether, due to capacity constraints or other reasons, it’s necessary for subscribers to get a larger or additional dish to get digital and how such constraints will affect the companies’ abilities to provide local, HD or value-added programming in the future.

From CE manufacturers, the FCC wants to know about efforts to educate consumers, plans for meeting the Commission’s schedule for digital reception capability and whether the companies will include an ATSC over-the-air tuner in all DTV sets produced with an integrated QAM tuner for plug-and-play capability. The agency asked manufacturers, including Hitachi, JVC, Mitsubishi, Panasonic, Philips, Pioneer, Samsung, Sharp, Sony, Thomson and Zenith, about their efforts to provide adequate reception of over-the-air digital signals and plans for deployment of digital connectors on DTV sets and digital set-top boxes.

The FCC asked CE retailers, including Best Buy, Circuit City, RadioShack and Tweeter, about their training programs for sales staff on DTV products and on the DTV transition more generally. It wants to know about other information or resources they make available to consumers shopping for DTV products and the companies’ ability to display HD content on showroom floors.

Reply Comments Filed on DTV Transition

The letters were sent out just as reply comments were due in the FCC’s proceeding on the DTV transition. Among those replies was one from Consumer Federation of America (CFA) charging that the FCC had failed to make the DTV transition a reality. The reason so few Americans own DTV sets or watch DTV pictures is that the Commission has relied on voluntary industry negotiations, rather than the public interest, to guide the digital transition, CFA charged. It said that just 3 years before policymakers thought the transition would be completed, half the TV stations in America weren’t broadcasting digital signals, and of those that were, half were doing so at low power. “The quibbling industry members (broadcasters, equipment manufacturers, cable operators) are not to blame for failing to coordinate the transition,” CFA Research Dir. Mark Cooper said. “Their job is to promote their own industry’s private interests. The only entity charged with promoting and protecting the public interest is the FCC, and they have fallen down on the job.” The FCC declined to comment.

The CFA also said the DTV transition had been stymied because digital content was limited, equipment functionality was being limited by technology mandates such as the “broadcast flag,” promised quality and functionality wasn’t being delivered, consumers had no incentive to replace their equipment and innovation was being retarded through gatekeeping by private interests.

In its reply comments, the Consumer Electronics Assn. (CEA) urged the FCC to swiftly adopt the cable-CE plug-and- play agreement and to reject broadcaster calls for delays. “The continued lack of an FCC-approved, cable-ready plug-and- play standard that will allow national interoperability between digital cable systems and DTV products continues to be a significant obstacle to the DTV rollout,” CEA said.

CEA also criticized the lack of full-power digital signals provided by broadcasters, pointing to comments by NCTA and the American Cable Assn. (ACA), which have said that, in many cases, reduced-power DTV signals from broadcasters didn’t reach cable system headends or were poor quality, below the level necessary for retransmission. CEA urged the FCC to set July 1, 2004, as the deadline for full analog service area replication and for maximization by network affiliates in the top 100 markets, and July 1, 2005, as the deadline for all other commercial and noncommercial broadcasters.

The NAB and Assn. for Maximum Service TV (MSTV) said in their reply comments that there had been “tremendous progress” in the transition and that nearly 98% of all U.S. TV households were in markets that had access to digital service, and more than 75% of all U.S. households were in markets that had access to 5 or more digital signals. They said TV stations already had invested $4.5 billion to convert to digital. “This expenditure has been made at a time when there have been relatively few off-air digital tuners in television sets and negligible carriage on cable or satellite systems,” the filing said. “Before the transition is over, broadcasters will spend between 10 and 16 billion dollars to convert fully to digital. Television broadcasters simply cannot afford to strand this investment and, accordingly, will push hard to assure a successful transition.”

NAB and MSTV said the FCC should establish a channel election deadline of May 1, 2005, establish replication and maximization deadlines that coincided with the end of the transition and reject “band-clearing” proposals for “a premature transition” of out-of-core stations. They said the agency should eliminate the simulcasting rule, permit satellite stations to turn their digital authorizations and “flash-cut” to DTV transmission on their analog channels, ensure that consumers were protected against the loss of service before the transition ended and adopt rules governing technical standards that would enhance delivery of DTV to consumers. Asked about the criticisms by CEA, an NAB spokesman said the industry had added more than 600 DTV stations in the last year. “The primary foot-dragger in the DTV transition has been the TV set manufacturers who are fighting the DTV tuner mandate and the cable operators, who are using their gatekeeper monopoly status to deny digital television signals to millions of Americans,” he said.

NCTA said in its comments that govt.-mandated dual broadcast carriage wasn’t the solution to the transition, nor would forced carriage speed up the transition because it wouldn’t help meet the 85% test. The association said the FCC should maintain rules and policies, such as the simulcasting obligation, that help viewers switch from viewing analog programming to viewing digital programming with a minimum of disruption. Comcast said dual must-carry would impede the company’s ability to allocate finite system bandwidth and violate the First and Fifth Amendments.

Paxson said the Commission should set channel election and service replication/maximization deadlines that treated every broadcaster equally, regardless of which channels they had been assigned. Paxson said that meant the Commission must reject suggestions that 700 MHz broadcasters be held to a compressed transition timetable and ensure that broadcasters not be allowed to accomplish an early channel election through DTV-analog channel swaps. The company said the FCC rules shouldn’t create a “spectrum rush” environment. The Commission must require cable operators to carry all of broadcasters’ free over-the-air services, Paxson again said.

On the issue of band-clearing, the rural 700 MHz band licensees’ comments urged the FCC to clear both the lower and upper 700 MHz band. They said an “incumbency perception” that broadcasters would be able to extend the transition well beyond the 2006 target date “affects licensees’ ability to finance system build-out, as well as the availability of system equipment and consumer devices tuned for the 700 MHz band.”

Consumer electronics maker Thomson said the Commission should adopt an interim deadline by which broadcasters must provide a DTV signal of sufficient strength to reach viewers in their Grade A contour and pass through network-originated HDTV programming. Thomson also wants the FCC to adopt the full A/65B PSIP standard and mandate its use by broadcasters, saying that ideally, those actions would be timed to coincide with the Commission’s July 1, 2004, deadline for large-screen TVs to include DTV tuners. Thomson urged speedy adoption of the plug-and-play agreement. Zenith pushed for education of the public about DTV. It said broadcasters and cable operators should make greater use of analog channels to inform viewers about the transition and content already available.

Meanwhile, House Commerce Committee Chmn. Tauzin (R-La.) and Telecom Subcommittee Chmn. Upton (R-Mich.) wrote to CBS and Viacom Thurs. to urge the network to continue with its plan to provide HDTV programming in the 2003-2004 TV season. The letter referred to Viacom’s filing in the FCC’s broadcast flag proceeding, which said that if the FCC hadn’t implemented a broadcast flag by summer, it wouldn’t proceed with HDTV content in the upcoming season. “While I understand your concerns -- and I share them -- I ask that for the good of the digital transition, CBS reconsider its deadline,” the letter said. “I am hopeful that the FCC will work to complete the broadcast flag proceeding by this fall, and certainly no later than the end of this calendar year.”