Senate DTV Hearing to be First Public Airing of Contentious Issues
The Senate Commerce Committee’s DTV hearing today (Tues.) is a long-awaited public airing of complex issues befogged in political uncertainty. The committee is seen as balancing the immediate need to raise revenue from spectrum auctions against a potential public backlash if the analog TV signal cutoff stumbles. The panel is holding the hearing despite lack of a draft bill, expected to be ready by the July 4 recess but is still in development, according to committee staffers.
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“This is critical,” said a House staffer of the Senate event: “It’s been disconcerting to see things slow down.” The House Telecom Subcommittee held a hearing in May (CD May 27 p1) on a discussion draft of a DTV bill. But markup plans fizzled when Republicans and Democrats couldn’t agree on a subsidy for converter boxes to help consumers without HDTV receivers view over-the-air broadcasts after the digital transition. “This is the first bite of the apple,” said a broadcast industry source.
In private, some House Commerce Committee have expressed frustration at the Senate’s slow pace on DTV. Senate Commerce Committee Chmn. Stevens (R-Alaska) has held many closed-door “listening sessions” with industry experts and company executives to weigh the issues outside the limelight. While many have praised the sessions for focusing in depth on a few key issues, others think it’s time to go public and speculate Stevens may have convened the hearing to move forward.
“There’s been a lot of interest in the DTV issue,” said a Senate Commerce Committee staffer. The hearing “gives us a chance to ask questions of folks in the industry,” he said, noting that it’s a “general” rather than “specific” hearing to sieve legislative details. “The House has held a variety of hearings and we're kind of replicating that.” He also said several members want to “weigh in” in the issues.
“It’s time to stop the delay here. This issue has been dragging on for a while and it could keep dragging,” said Braden Cox, technology analyst with the Competitive Enterprise Institute. He stressed the need for a hard digital conversion date, which he said would be better for consumers. “It is hoped that the hearings will induce Congress to place the broadcasters on a transition mission,” he said. He also said he hopes the hearing won’t descend into a numbers-heavy brouhaha, gauging how many TVs won’t work after transition, which would be the basis for a subsidy program. “That’s important, but what’s more important is the value of the spectrum,” he said. “We need to move beyond the blame game.”
Today’s hearing will include 2 panels -- the first on dual must carry, multicast and downconversion issues, with testimony from cable and broadcast industries. The 2nd panel will discuss the 700 MHz spectrum, tuner subsidies and consumer issues, the committee staffer said.
One fractious issue the panel must sort out is emerging in a print ad NAB plans to run this week in Capitol Hill publications, savaging cable “monopolies” for denying viewers all the choices broadcasters offer. The ad shows a TV remote control with an on-off button and copy reading: “Here is the only choice cable companies want you to have.” The ad said cable and satellite services want viewers to see only what they produce in the digital TV age: “They're charging you for system upgrades but refusing to let you see anything other than what they choose.” Returning fire, NCTA said NAB isn’t providing constructive plans to help Americans enter the digital TV era. “NAB is continuing its long legacy of pointing fingers at others and looking for government handouts to help compensate for their own failure to compete in the marketplace like everyone else,” NCTA said.
An NCTA spokesman said cable testimony will feature plans it has put forward for “ensuring a smooth digital transition at no cost to the government.” In addition, NCTA Pres. Kyle McSlarrow is expected to emphasize industry opposition to the effective dual must-carry provision tucked into the Barton bill -- a version of which recently was floated at the FCC but didn’t make this week’s agenda. Cable opposes any govt. requirement that systems carry dual analog/digital TV signals or a broadcaster’s “multicasts” -- signals beyond its traditional single programming channel.
CEA Pres. Gary Shapiro is expected to push Dec. 31, 2008, as a hard analog cutoff deadline, as he did before the House Telecom Subcommittee in May. He also probably will sidestep efforts to get him to take a position for or against tuner subsidies on grounds that CE makers never sought one. CEA’s main pushback on DTV legislation floated thus far has been to resist calls to advance DTV tuner mandate compliance dates on remaining sets. CEA last month lost a bid at the FCC to scrap a July 1 compliance deadline on 50% of 25-36” sets, and comments are due July 27 on a new Commission proposal -- opposed by CEA makers -- to advance the final deadline on all remaining sets to Dec. 31, 2006, “or sooner,” from today’s deadline of July 1, 2007.
Consumers Union’s testimony will outline 4 areas of concern it thinks Congress must address in digital transition: (1) Ensure consumers don’t bear direct costs by fully compensating for converter boxes for all over- the-air-only sets. (2) Promote market competition, rather than consolidation, by setting aside a portion of the 108 MHz reclaimed spectrum for new entrants. (3) Provide for unlicensed, or open-market, use of either reclaimed or digital spectrum by commercial and non-commercial entities to foster universal access to wireless broadband. (4) Prevent more concentration in local media markets by barring broadcasters from holding 2 TV licenses or owning a newspaper in the same market.