Broadcasters, CE Again at Odds on Speeding DTV Tuner Deadline

NAB/MSTV and others urged the FCC to study the “feasibility” of a deadline earlier than Dec. 2006. But not all urged a specific date, as Motorola did in pushing Nov. 1, 2006. Broadcast interests also embraced a Commission plan to expand the mandate to sets smaller than 13” on grounds that most rely on over-the-air signals. NAB/MSTV also said Americans depend significantly on smaller sets in emergencies; being battery-powered, they're “crucial” in power outages resulting from “natural or manmade disasters.”

On that point, CEA, the Consumer Electronics Retailers Coalition (CERC) and individual CE makers again disagreed. They said most smaller sets are used with DVD players in vehicles, and so don’t need federally mandated DTV tuners. And such sets cost too little to require the relatively expensive tuners, they argued. In a surprise, Philips was alone among set makers arguing that sets smaller than 13” shouldn’t be excluded from the mandate. Moreover, CEA didn’t oppose including them in the mandate, but said further study was needed.

Disney/ABC urged acceleration of the July 1, 2007, deadline on 13-24” sets, but didn’t say if it endorses the Dec. 31, 2006, date the FCC order proposes. Disney/ABC said it backs applying the mandate to sets smaller than 13” because ensuring that all new TV sets sold include digital tuners “is paramount to the success of the digital transition.”

The FCC should include sets smaller than 13” in its tuner mandate schedule “at the earliest feasible date,” Disney/ABC said, again without recommending a deadline. “Given that policy-makers are debating proposals to accelerate the digital transition and to create a consumer converter box subsidy program, there should not be any category of TV sets that would not work at some point in the ever-increasing near future,” Disney/ABC said. Although such sets cost less, as CE has argued, “it seems intuitive that these sets also will be unlikely to be connected to cable and instead will be placed in viewers’ kitchens, bathrooms or will be used when viewers are traveling,” it said. For these to be sold without a DTV tuner “will only increase the number of sets that will need a converter box” or subsidy, and “will only increase viewer confusion about the digital transition,” Disney/ABC said.

Minimizing any tuner subsidy or converter box giveaway needed in an analog cutoff gives the FCC “additional incentive to ensure that as few as possible analog-only sets are sold between now and the impending shutdown of analog broadcasts,” NAB/MSTV told the Commission. Moreover, moving the tuner deadline even earlier than Dec. 2006 “would mean that consumers looking to the 2006 holiday and Super Bowl selling season with DTV purchase plans or analog set replacement intentions would not face the same dearth” of TVs with DTV tuners as today, NAB/MSTV said.

Letting CE makers continue to sell analog-only sets after the spectrum handover would be “unconscionable,” Motorola said. While Motorola supports the Commission- proposed Dec. 2006 deadline, “a far greater impact on the transition will be achieved” by moving to a Nov. 2006 date, it said. Like broadcast groups, Motorola said a Nov. 2006 “benchmark” would capitalize on increased sales during the 2006 holiday season, “increasing the number of DTV-capable sets that are in the homes of consumers, and reducing the need for extra conversion equipment and reducing the overall cost to consumers.” Motorola didn’t say whether it supports extending the tuner mandate to sets smaller than 13”.

Set-makers such as Philips retorted that accelerating the last of the deadlines to Dec. 2006 -- on the heels of moving up 4 months the compliance date on 25-36” sets -- isn’t feasible “from a design, development and manufacturing perspective.” Philips cautioned it would “tax manufacturers’ capabilities to the breaking point and entail unacceptable risk to quality and reliability, unnecessarily cause sharp price increases and result in reduced or no availability to consumers of such products.”

But Philips, “recognizing the pressure to accelerate the DTV conversion,” said it would support moving the deadline to March from July 2007. That wouldn’t cause “inordinate disruption” in the market -- if the Commission acts by this Oct., to afford “sufficient advance notice” to all CE makers and retailers, Philips said. The company urged the FCC to keep the July 2007 deadline for “peripheral equipment” such as tuner-equipped VCRs and DVD recorders. But in a surprise break with others in CE, Philips said it backs extending the tuner mandate to sets smaller than 13”. “Assuming that analog broadcasts will completely cease, it is reasonable to extend the mandate to all television sets, regardless of size,” Philips said.

CEA and CERC, in joint comments, didn’t oppose outright extending the mandate to smaller sets. With sets 13” and smaller, CEA and CERC said, more “experience is necessary with the small-chassis products” that now come under tuner mandate rules “before the feasibility can be determined regarding the inclusion of digital tuners in some of these products, which may be radically smaller and less expensive.” But the CE groups said it appears “that the cost and development burdens on manufacturers, and the impact on consumers, would outweigh any possible benefits.”

CEA and CERC unequivocally opposed moving up the July 2007 deadline. There’s “insufficient basis” for changing the existing deadline, they said. Doing so not only would be unwarranted, but also “infeasible for the general population of TV receiver manufacturers,” whose normal product development cycle is 18 months, CEA and CERC said. Like Philips and others, CEA and CERC said March 2007 is the earliest date set makers can comply with.