Martin Backs Broadcasters on Multicast Must-Carry at NAB

Must-carry is among DTV carriage items of top priority for Martin before the Feb. 2009 analog cutoff, he said. Asked later about a Commission majority’s backing his proposal, he admitted chances aren’t high on a Commission split evenly on party lines. “Two commissioners here voted ‘no,'” he told reporters after his speech, alluding to Comrs. Adelstein and Copps.

“I'd bring it up if there was a majority of the Commission that wants to answer it,” added Martin, the lone dissenter from the 2005 item. Since becoming chairman just over a year ago, he has staked out positions different from Powell’s on topics affecting cable including a la carte. Cable supports downconverting digital signals. NCTA declined to comment on Martin’s remarks.

Broadcasters and cable must ensure high definition signals aren’t degraded by the time they reach viewers, Martin told NAB. The FCC may have a role, he said: “We need to make sure and clarify that the obligation means that all cable consumers have to be able to view” such broadcasts. “Those set of carriage issues are really critical, and the Commission really needs to end up addressing those before 2009, and that has to be our top priority,” he said.

Supporting all industries’ digital technology plans is also important, Martin said. Executives from broadcasting, wireless and Internet firms predict a prominent role for online content in expanding sales at NAB (see separate story). “We put an emphasis and focus on trying to help all those industries as they make the transition to digital platforms,” said Martin. Examples include FM digital radio and in-band on-channel for AM stations during the day, he added.

Martin endorsed another broadcaster cause -- keeping satellite radio from using its FCC licenses to send different programming to U.S. cities -- in response to a query by NAB Joint Board Chmn. Bruce Reese. Sirius and XM eventually want to provide local news, traffic and weather - departing from their national licenses -- said Reese, pres. of Bonneville International. “In general, you're right, this service was originally licensed or envisioned as a national service,” Martin said: “In general the Commission will continue to follow through with that kind of approach. We have put conditions on them in the past in that way.”

Satellite radio isn’t violating such rules, Martin told the media: “What they're doing now is not a problem.” And satellite radio can offer a service like the Weather Channel cable network “provided to everywhere in the country” while giving weather reports on individual cities, he said. Another example of acceptable content is carrying a sports program of regional interest to subscribers nationwide, he said.

Martin declined to use the occasion to tell broadcasters to air “family friendly” shows the first hour of prime time, when asked by Reese about indecency. Questioned by us after the keynote on his plans to promote the proposal, which he discussed at length late last year (CD Nov 14 p2), he was vague. “I will continue to tell all the broadcasters they should implement a family viewing hour,” he said, echoing his answer to our question at NCTA (CD April 12 p1).

Cable can do more on family programming, Martin told a news briefing. Cable firms have 3 options, he said: (1) Let users “opt out of channels,” a la a la carte. (2) “Block and reimburse” subscribers for channels they don’t want that are part of program packages. (3) Do as Canadian cable firms do, “giving consumers more choice over what they can buy” by selling packages of about 10 channels. -- Jonathan Make

NAB Notebook…

Broadcasters used an innovative NAB forum with FCC staff to complain about matters ranging from diversity and DTV requirements to affiliate-network relations. Some broadcasters used the occasion to ask top Media Bureau officials whether they could continue analog broadcast operations after Feb. 17, 2009, because of logistical constraints in changing out tower gear. Officials replied that can’t be done and they can complain to Congress if they want to change DTV transition rules. Another broadcaster said he was stymied by equal employment opportunity rules that hurt small market stations’ ability to quickly replace workers who quit suddenly. Some stations are hampered in what they can carry by contracts with networks, which impose penalties for not airing shows at scheduled times, another broadcaster, who didn’t identify himself, told Media Bureau officials including Senior Deputy Bureau Chief Roy Stewart. Officials took note of broadcasters’ concerns, though one staffer said the FCC’s doesn’t usually get involved in contract disputes. Told by a hard of hearing person about closed captioning glitches, Media Bureau Chief Donna Gregg said she would relay his concerns to FCC officials who could help him. Participants praised the forum for allowing them to share “real world” concerns with FCC staff sitting at tables where executives dropped by, shared bowls of M&Ms, asked questions and griped. -- JM

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Yet another enhanced version of VSB modulation for the U.S. HDTV system was unveiled at the NAB convention by Samsung and Rohde & Schwarz. The developers claim their A- VSB system is even more robust than the E-VSB system launched in 2005 by Zenith. A-VSB adds Supplemental Reference Sequence technology to reduce dynamic multipath interference, plus time diversity. It also trades about 1 Mbps data capacity for improved signal reception, cutting its capacity to 18.3 Mbps, still well above DVB and ISDB-T. The firms showed mobile devices’ ability to display S-VGA quality video even when moving at more than 150 mph, with the modulation system devoting 16 Mbps to an HDTV signal for home reception and 2 Mbps to the lower-definition signal for mobile devices. Officials said broadcasters could upgrade to A-VSB simply by upgrading the exciter, multiplexer and encoder; the signal is backward compatible with existing DTV sets. A-VSB already has begun ATSC standards setting, and officials said they hope it will be a full-fledged candidate standard by the end of 2006, with approval coming within 6 months. Samsung would begin developing chips by early next year, with the first products on the market by the end of 2007, officials said. -- MF

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“A year ago, IPTV was a gleam in many of our eyes,” Phil Corman, dir., Microsoft TV Div., said in a keynote here: “Now it is a worldwide phenomenon.” He expects 30 million IPTV subscribers by 2009, up from virtually none today, he said, noting it usually takes 10 years for most new technologies to reach 10 million users. More importantly, Corman said, IPTV “will do to TV what the Internet did for the PC -- completely change it.” Among other things, he said, it will shift TV from a broadcast model to “everything on demand.” Corman also said it will affect consumer electronics by, for example, taking the DVR, video on demand and picture-in-picture out of the hardware realm and putting it into the IPTV system. It will be “very difficult for satellite and cable to keep up” with IPTV because of bandwidth limits, he said. IPTV “will be a free-for-all for a while” because of the new competition, Jeff Weber, AT&T vp- products & strategy, said: “We will all have to go out and compete.”

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Privacy will be a key issue as firms use IPTV’s targeted advertising capabilities, said Derek Kuhn, Alcatel gen. mgr.- mktg. Worldwide, privacy is “regionally extremely diverse,” with some nations allowing no data mining at all, but IPTV operators have “diverse ways” to use demographic and other data to assure ads go to appropriate viewers, he said on a panel at the NAB show. AT&T is “relatively conservative” about privacy issues targeted ads raise, Jeff Weber, AT&T vp- products & strategy, said: “We are very aware, very focused” on privacy. AT&T will allow some use of consumer data, but only if consumers specifically opt in, Weber said. Personalized IPTV has “enormous implications for advertisers,” Phil Corman, dir., Microsoft TV Div., said: “Reports of the death of advertising have been grossly exaggerated,” given targeted ads’ arrival. Asked when there will be enough IPTV viewers to attract advertisers, Kuhn said it’s “all about scale,” with operators already starting to see enough IPTV viewers. “Different advertisers have different thresholds” for when they will experiment with the new medium, he said.

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TV news as a “public service [is] going out of fashion,” CBS correspondent Dan Rather said at an RTNDA panel on “The Shape of Things to Come” for broadcast news. But, he said, “I believe it’s going to continue to be a good business,” despite audience shrinkage. Hearst-Argyle news chief Fred Young said local TV news still is most Americans’ top news source. Univision anchor Jorge Ramos complained “there are many parts of the world we are totally ignoring.” The future of radio news is “very bright,” CBS’s Harvey Nagler said: “We've been dying for 55 years but the reality is we're bigger and stronger than ever.” In a discussion of whether bloggers are journalists, Young said “blogging is wonderful but bloggers scare me” because “they have no obligation to be accurate.” Rather agreed, saying there “needs to be more accountability” for Internet news providers. Blogging lets reporters update a breaking story as it happens, Tom Curley of AP said: “It’s still a people business, where [a reporter] has to ferret out the information.”

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“All this stuff about the demise of television --it’s all crap,” said David Gealy, CEO of ACME Communications, on an NAB panel on independents and the new networks. In the formation of the CW Network from the WB and UPN, 7 ACME stations have switched from WB to CW, and its station in Albuquerque affiliated with Fox’s MyNetworkTV. It’s way too early to know the results of the network shake-up, Gealy said. Brady Brus, pres. of independent KSBI-TV Oklahoma City, said the secret in competing with affiliates is “flexibility” in scheduling and going after “niche” audiences. Robert Prather of Gray TV said that in the TV business “you've got to be nimble.”

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All the communication industries are about to launch an “unprecedented” multimillion dollar effort to educate consumers about TV programming blocking devices like the V- chip, former MPAA CEO Jack Valenti told an NAB all-industry lunch. McCann Erickson has been hired to make TV spots to air “millions” of times starting in June on TV, cable and satellite, he said. “You, the parent, have the [blocking] mechanism now,” he said, but it’s seldom used. Of recent FCC indecency fines, Valenti said, “much of what’s going on now is unconstitutional.” He cited the First Amendment: “Those words don’t wobble.”

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A major problem for national reporters covering Hurricane Katrina and its aftermath was “we couldn’t convince our bosses [in N.Y.] it was as bad as it was,” Fox News anchor Shepard Smith told an RTNDA panel on the hurricane coverage. “The story was developing before our eyes, not our managers’ eyes,” he said.

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Relatively few transponders are available on PanAmSat’s main TV satellites, said Kurt Riegelman, senior vp-N. American sales, in an NAB convention presentation. Besides occasional-use transponders, few Ku-band transponders are available, he said, and C-band capacity on cable and high- definition satellites is “in high demand.” Second-generation satellites are “near capacity,” he said: “We're pretty full on the cable birds.” PanAmSat has “clawed its way back” into the broadcast market after the failure of Galaxy 4, Riegelman said, and now carries more broadcasters than any other satellite provider.

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Harris Corp. launched a DVB-H mobile TV transmitter for 1670 MHz services, at the show. Power outputs from 50-400 watts are available, it said.

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Sony Ericsson joined the Mobile DTV Alliance, it said here. “History shows that global standards are critical to the success of the mobile industry, and we strongly believe this will also be the case for broadcast mobile TV,” said Sony Ericsson CTO Scott Bloebaum.

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Tandberg TV showed an on-demand interactive advertising system at the show. It said the system integrates video on demand with interactive TV functionality, allowing ads to be matched to program types and demographic data. Tandberg said the system will help advertisers adapt to DVRs and VoD.

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HD Radio is rolling out more quickly, with multicast programming set for 22 more markets, HD Radio Alliance said here. Multicasting will be available in 42 of the top 50 markets, plus 8 others, it said. New markets: Phoenix, San Diego, Minneapolis, Nassau-Suffolk, N.Y., St. Louis, Tampa, Denver, Pittsburgh, Cleveland, Sacramento, Riverside, Cal., Kansas City, San Antonio, Salt Lake City, Milwaukee, Columbus, Providence, Charlotte, Middlesex-Union-Somerset, N.J., Las Vegas, Orlando and Norfolk, Va. The group also announced new programming formats.