PUBLIC TV TO PRESS AHEAD WITH HARD DATE FOR ANALOG SWITCH-OFF

The analog switch-off plan would be contingent on PTV stations gaining carriage of all of their digital signals on cable and satellite, besides the establishment of the trust fund, Lawson said. The fund, which public broadcasters have been demanding since the Lyndon Johnson administration, would be used not only for new digital content but also to subsidize digital-to-analog set-top boxes “so that we can maintain our universal service obligations” to those who get their signals over the air, he said. Public broadcasters haven’t been successful in the past in getting the fund created because their plans were based on such methods as taxing the sale of TV sets or imposing a fee on the transfer of a commercial TV license, he said.

Under the new plan, Lawson said, public broadcasters are touting the benefits of an early give-back of analog spectrum to the govt. as well as the economy as a whole. PTV stations control 21% of the analog spectrum. “Under the right conditions, we think most of our stations will be willing to embrace a hard date to turn off analog,” he said. The plan also draws on the Berlin analog turn-off model to call for subsidizing set-top boxes for those who “simply can’t afford even cheap set-top boxes but also depend on over-the-air TV.” In the case of Berlin, which became the first market in the world to turn off analog last Aug., and the U.K., where the Freeview digital model (CD Dec 17 p6) has spurred consumer acceptance, the availability of inexpensive set-top boxes has been an important factor, he said.

There also has been positive response on Capitol Hill to the analog switch-off proposal, Lawson said. In discussions with members and staff of the Senate and House Commerce committees, he said, “there is a great desire to free up analog TV spectrum for other purposes.” It’s seen on the Hill as “very important for stimulating the economy, particularly the wireless sector,” he said. Besides, he said, the public safety community needs more spectrum. “We appear to be the only broadcasters right now who are talking about a hard date and what we've found is there is a great interest on the Hill in working with us.” The money for the PTV trust fund would come from the proceeds of the analog spectrum auctions, he said. The digital-only broadcast plan would help PTV stations save $36 million per year in electricity costs for running the analog channel -- equivalent to 20% of the federal Community Service Grants (CSG) in FY 2003.

As for cable and satellite carriage, Lawson said there was “a great deal of sentiment” on the Hill and at the FCC to ensure that PTV’s signals were carried by cable. “It’s just that there are constitutional and other issues that they have to resolve and this just taking a long time. But we are confident that one way or the other in the public interest, public television’s multicast digital signals will be carried on cable, at least post-transition.” However, it was a little trickier for satellite, he said: “We are still developing our strategy for the reauthorization of SHVIA,” the Satellite Home Viewer Improvement Act.”

Lawson said commercial broadcasters weren’t interested in discussing a hard date for ending analog transmission. However, he said, there was “a lot of interest in creating some sort of Freeview type service,” although nothing was imminent “in terms of a joint effort” with commercial counterparts. That may be because NAB has begun looking at the Freeview model itself. A broadcast industry source said the Freeview model was discussed at the recent NAB board meeting. “All of the broadcast industry is looking at a variety of multicast options, Freeview being one and USDTV being another,” the source said. There is a very active effort by local broadcasters to explore the business models with multicasting, he said. However, if the FCC were to vote against broadcasters on the multicasting carriage issue, “I think there would be very few stations that would be multicasting.” Begun in Oct., Freeview is a joint venture of the BBC, transmission experts Crown Castle and Rupert Murdoch’s BSkyB. The digital terrestrial service offers 30 free TV channels to consumers, requiring only that they buy its set-top boxes for about Pounds 60.