Rehr to CBA: Work With Us, Not Against Us, on DTV Education
Low power broadcasters shouldn’t disrupt DTV switch educational efforts by the rest of the industry, NAB CEO David Rehr wrote in a letter to Community Broadcasters Association counsel Peter Tannenwald. Rehr said his letter was prompted by a report in Communications Daily that CBA officials threatened to disrupt DTV education (CD March 3 p1). Unlike full-power broadcasters, low power and translator stations need not stop analog service in Feb. 2009. The CBA, which represents low power broadcasters, fears too many consumers will buy government-subsidized digital-analog converter boxes that won’t receive or pass through analog LPTV signals. “Surely CBA would rather work cooperatively to address the current issues facing low power television viewers in the digital television transition than this report suggests,” Rehr said.
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Rehr voiced concern over a TV spot the CBA is running on some low power stations. The spot claims buying a converter box with no NTSC tuner will “block you from seeing 80 percent of the TV stations that are broadcasting in the United States.” The spot distorts the facts by counting every low power and translator transmitter, Rehr said. Those stations reach a much smaller audience than the 1,762 full power stations, he said.
The CBA is happy to work with NAB on a low-power solution, but not to help promote converter boxes unable to pass through analog signals, Tannenwald told us. “We're not going to participate in educational efforts telling people to buy converter boxes that limit their viewing choices and we're going to continue to suggest better solutions to people,” he said, saying he was drafting a response to Rehr’s letter.
The NAB is developing LPTVAnswers.com, a Web site to offer DTV transition information to low-power TV viewers, Rehr said. The site will lay out options for LPTV viewers that includes buying a set with analog and digital tuners, buying a converter box able to pass through analog signals, or buying a box with both tuners. Dual-tuner boxes typically cost far more than ATSC-only boxes.
The site will explain how to install antenna splitters on boxes to continue receiving both analog and DTV signals, Rehr wrote. Splitters aren’t a realistic solution, Tannenwald said. “We're not going to go along with telling people to buy splitters and put wires on these boxes because the average member of the public isn’t going to do that,” he said.
Whatever the solution, industry needs to pick one soon, Tannenwald said. “The time for solutions is now -- not two or three months from now -- because the boxes are on the shelves,” he said. “The committee and talking time is up.” Moreover, that solution needs to look at the larger LPTV transition to digital, Tannenwald said. “Let’s look at the whole problem of LPTV and solve the whole problem together.”