Low-power broadcasters will imperil the digital transition if they succeed in getting the NTIA to change rules for DTV converter boxes (CD Feb 12 p2), CEA President Gary Shapiro told a Media Institute lunch Thursday in Washington. If the Community Broadcasters Association gets the FCC to decide that devices that don’t pass along analog signals are illegal, it “means a delay in the transition,” Shapiro said. “It would obliterate a multi-billion dollar investment by manufacturers” to produce dozens of models of boxes, some of which have the so-called passthrough features, said Shapiro: “We're asking the FCC to ignore the CBA’s petition.”
A group of broadcasters began a field test of three competing mobile DTV technologies being considered for an industry standard. The Open Mobile Video Coalition is doing the test in San Francisco this week for the Advanced TV Systems Committee, which will set the standard. Another round of field and lab tests will occur soon in Las Vegas, with a preliminary report due March 15 to ATSC, ATSC President Mark Richer said during a BIA Financial webinar. The coalition is confident its participation will help yield a standard for commercial deployment soon after the February 2009 DTV switch, said Dan Hsieh, a consultant to the group.
A wide range of industries should ensure TV viewers can keep watching low-power broadcasters after the digital transition for full-power stations, FCC Chairman Kevin Martin wrote five lobbying groups. He outlined steps that consumer electronics retailers and manufacturers, satellite providers, cable operators and broadcasters should take for the signals of the more than 7,300 low-power stations to be widely seen after Feb. 17, 2009. The FCC late Wednesday released his letter to the heads of the CEA, Consumer Electronics Retailers Coalition, NAB, NCTA and Satellite Industry Association.
More money and policy coordination are needed to ensure consumers are ready for the Feb. 17, 2009, digital transition, House lawmakers said Wednesday in a Telecom Subcommittee oversight hearing. The hearing is the subcommittee’s fourth in the 110th Congress. The Senate has held three, postponing a fourth set for Thursday so members could attend services for the late Rep. Tom Lantos (D- Calif.). High on the list of DTV worries is the fate of viewers in areas served by low-power broadcasters not required to make the transition.
Retailers want to ensure that viewers of low-power TV stations can keep getting the signals after the full-power digital transition (CD Feb 12 p2), said Marc Pearl, executive director of the Consumer Electronics Retailers Coalition. Electronics stores will sell DTV converter boxes that pass- through analog signals as well as digital broadcasts and will also market splitters, Pearl told us late Monday. Both options will let over-the-air viewers keep getting low-power signals, which aren’t covered by an FCC-imposed transition deadline, after Feb. 17, 2009, he said. The most recent version of the retail coalition’s consumer guide, posted online last week, tells consumers about the low-power broadcasters, said Pearl. “Everyone -- retailers, manufacturers, broadcasters (both full and low power), the FCC and the NTIA -- have an interest in making sure the public is fully informed of their options to help them get through the transition,” he said. But an ad run by low-power stations telling viewers that they must buy a device with an ATSC and NTSC tuner is “misleading,” said Pearl. Those devices can’t be bought with the $40 converter box coupons that the NTIA will send out starting next week and may cost more than $150 or require a new set, he added.
Government and industry officials have gathered twice at the FCC this month to discuss how they can ensure that people who watch low-power TV stations keep getting their signals after the digital transition, said a half-dozen participants. FCC Chairman Kevin Martin requested the meeting so a wide range of those involved in the transition could discuss how to publicize NTIA-certified converter boxes that pass through analog signals, they said. The NTIA already has certified three boxes that can do this as eligible for $40 coupons that it will start sending to consumers Feb. 18, and it expects to certify others (CD Feb 11 p4) OR (CED Feb 11 p4). But low- power broadcasters are concerned that most of the more than 30 NTIA-certified boxes can’t do pass-through, and they filed a complaint on the matter with the FCC Dec. 7.
Broadcasters may miss out on an ad windfall from mobile DTV if station groups don’t broadcast at full power for maximum coverage, Sinclair Broadcast Group Chairman David Smith said in an interview. “It’s a matter of survival,” he said. “If they don’t do this, they may be gone in five or 10 years.” U.S. TV stations could gain $1.1 billion in annual ad sales by 2012 from mobile DTV, and networks would get another $900 million, according to a BIA study commissioned by the NAB. But stations that choose not to operate their digital stations at full power are putting themselves in jeopardy, Smith said.
Attending CES gave the State Department a “level of credibility and timeliness” it had lacked as it tried to get Latin American powerhouse economies to weigh the ATSC standard for DTV, an agency official told the first meeting this year of the Advisory Committee on International Communications and Information Policy Thursday. Things may not be looking up in the Southern Hemisphere for the U.S.- backed standard, but they aren’t looking down either, said David Gross, U.S. coordinator for international communications and information policy. The meeting also covered cross-border spectrum issues.
A mobile DTV system developed by Micronas and Thomson that’s a candidate to become an industry standard won’t be ready for consumer trials that a group of broadcasters plans to run this year. The Open Mobile Video Coalition plans at midyear to give consumers in at least two markets multiple mobile DTV receivers in devices such as cellphones and lap-top computers developed separately by Samsung and Rohde & Schwarz and by LG and Harris (CD Jan 9 p13) and monitor how they use them. Broadcasters hope they can introduce a commercial mobile DTV service in February 2009, just after the DTV transition.
Broadcasters will run consumer trials of two competing mobile DTV systems this year in separate markets, the Open Mobile Video Coalition announced at CES. Broadcasters led by Ion Media will use programming from SES-Americom’s IP-Prime offering to test Samsung and Rohde & Schwarz’s A-VSB system as well as LG and Harris’ Mobile Pedestrian Handheld system. Those mobile DTV technologies and another from Micronas and Grass Valley are being considered for an industry standard by the ATSC. The coalition will hand out mobile DTV-enabled cell phones, portable media players and laptops to consumers in multiple test markets, the group said. It hopes to learn how consumers are likely to use mobile DTV and to see how each system performs. “Broadcasters are focused on launching mobile digital television services in 2009, and these consumers trials are a critical component of our due diligence,” said Brandon Burgess, Ion Media’s CEO and the coalition’s chairman.