Stressing a can-do attitude to the FCC, companies are unveiling their plans to move the digital transition forward. The filings by Comcast, Fox, Philips, Zenith others came in response to a series of questions from FCC Media Bureau Chief Kenneth Ferree in May (CD May 23 p1) seeking specific information about each company’s efforts. His letters went to broadcasters, cable operators, CE companies and satellite operators.
Thomson “intends to fully meet” the FCC’s mandate that at least 50% of the 36” or larger TV sets sold be equipped with ATSC tuners by July 1 next year, David Arland, dir. of public & trade relations, told the Commission Fri. Thomson also urged Commission to set same July 1, 2004, deadline requiring DTV stations to transmit at full power. In response to a request by FCC Media Bureau Chief Kenneth Ferree for progress reports on key points of the DTV transition, Arland said his company also was developing products “that will ensure that we meet the other requirements of the digital tuner/decoder mandate from 2004 through 2007.” However, he said Thomson believed “a critical element of meeting this mandate” was rapid FCC approval of the cable-consumer electronics “plug-and-play” agreement: “We anticipate that the majority of consumers who will be shopping for HDTV sets will be expecting ‘cable-ready’ products that work seamlessly with existing cable networks.” Arland told us that Thomson and other CE makers were “disturbed” to learn at the recent NCTA show that the FCC planned no action on plug-and-play before Sept. Given that timetable, Arland said, “the window is closing fast” on makers’ ability to provide a comprehensive cable-ready solution in time for the July 2004 tuner deadline. Arland said Thomson “is just not willing to take the risk” of building full cable functionality into DTV decoders mandated for July 2004 on chance that negotiated agreement on plug- and-play will be changed. Arland’s letter said “successive generations of DTV products are improving” as makers gain more and more “real world experience with DTV transmissions and the various factors required to adequately receive, process and display digital audio and video signals… Those improvements come without govt. intervention but rather in the presence of a much more powerful motivation -- competitive pressure.” But Arland said such advances in receiver performance could go only so far: “Regrettably, most local broadcasters are NOT transmitting their digital TV signals at full power.” He said the Commission’s most recent figures indicated only 25% of commercial broadcast stations were on the air with DTV transmission signal “that covers their analog station service areas. This raises the prospect that a very significant number of homes that receive a station’s analog signal cannot receive that station’s digital signal.” Arland said “the suggestion by many broadcasters that ‘insensitive receivers’ are somehow to blame for poor consumer reception of digital TV signals misses the real problem, which, Thomson respectfully suggests lies not with receiver sensitivity but rather by a lack of commitment of the broadcasting community to transmit their digital TV signals at full power.”
Industry DTV shipments exceeded one million sets in 2003’s first 20 weeks ended May 16, the CEA said. Comparisons with 2002 aren’t available because the DTV data for the year earlier were compiled only on a monthly basis. CEA has projected a 43% rise in DTV shipments this year to 3,850,000 sets from 2,680,000 in 2002, including standalone direct-view, projection, plasma and LCD sets and those with integrated ATSC tuners.
Rapid FCC adoption of a cable-CE plug-and-play interoperability agreement is necessary to “enable manufacturers to realize efficiencies deriving from commonalities between designing and producing cable-ready DTV receivers” and meeting the Commission’s July 1, 2004, deadline for incorporating ATSC tuners in half of all larger- screen TVs, Thomson said in an ex parte filing at the FCC. Thomson representatives, meeting May 19 with the staff of the FCC’s Media Bureau, emphasized the importance of “avoiding the unfortunate consequence of the Commission’s missing an 18-month product cycle” while consideration of plug-and-play agreement is still pending, the filing said. Ensuring the ability of consumers to walk into a retail outlet and be assured that the DTV set they want to buy is truly “cable- ready” is “perhaps the single most important near-term achievement the Commission could accomplish to accelerate the DTV transition,” Thomson said.
The FCC’s Media Bureau sent a flurry of letters to all of the industry players involved in the digital TV transition seeking more specific details on their efforts to move the transition forward. Bureau Chief Kenneth Ferree asked the major TV networks -- ABC, CBS, Fox, NBC, PAX, PBS, UPN and WB -- to describe in detail their digital programming being fed to affiliates, including the time period of the programming, the source of the material and the format in which it was transmitted.
The FCC should move quickly to adopt the industry agreement on cable compatibility, the NCTA said in the latest round of comments to the Commission, and objections by the MPAA and others should be dismissed because the proposed rules were modeled on those already developed for secure digital connectors and agreed to by MPAA studios and others. The CEA and the Consumer Electronics Retailers Coalition agreed, but MPAA and others said hasty Commission action would be harmful and unnecessary.
Finger pointing over the slowed DTV transition continued in comments filed Mon. with the FCC on 2 DTV proceedings (CD April 22 p3): the biennial review and on whether to impose public interest obligations. Most of the comments were repeats: Cable representatives said more consumer devices were needed, the consumer electronics industry said there wasn’t enough content and promotion and broadcasters said there must be cable must-carry for DTV.
With barely 3 weeks left to comply with a federal mandate to convert to digital, more than 120 of the 357 public TV stations have reported compliance, the Assn. of Public TV Stations (APTS said. “It looks like two-thirds or more will make the [May 1] deadline,” APTS Pres. John Lawson said in an interview. Faced with an estimated conversion cost of $1.7 billion, public broadcasters had raised $771 million from state, local and private sources, with only $221 million coming from the federal govt through FY 2003. However, federal money released this year made a big difference to many stations’ digital transition, Lawson said: “I think that is going to be the primary reason that a lot of stations get over the finish line.”
Full and “expeditious” approval of the FCC rulemaking encompassing the “plug-and-play” agreement on cable-CE interoperability (CD Dec 20 p1) was urged in joint comments filed at the Commission by the CEA and Consumer Electronics Retailers Coalition (CERC). Others, including broadcasters and the MPAA, disagreed.
Cable TV systems should be permitted to charge DTV subscribers an extra $10 per month for digital programming -- with half of that paid by systems to local TV stations -- Josh Bernoff of Forrester Research said last week. Speaking at the NAB Futures Summit in Monterey, Cal., he said a survey of digital set owners showed that 75% would be willing to pay an average of $110.20 per month for high-definition programming and that cable systems should “break precedent” and pay TV stations for digital content: “Why? Because the digital transition is profitless for the entire TV value chain.” He said networks now aired some HDTV programming “to make a positive impression on the FCC regulators… One TV executive told us confidentially that his network produces HDTV just to please the FCC.” If systems are allowed to charge for DTV, they should be required by the FCC to carry both analog and digital signals of local stations, Bernoff said. And, he said, cable payments to broadcasters would encourage the production of more high-definition programming and speed the overall transition to digital. Another benefit of charging subscribers for HDTV, Bernoff said: “Operators can slow or stop their basic cable rate increases, bringing down congressional and consumer blood pressure.” Mark Richer, pres. of the Advanced TV Systems Committee (ATSC), detailed to the Summit attendees efforts being made to develop new broadcast standards and the increased flexibility they would provide for broadcasters and set manufacturers. He said progress was being made with CableLabs to “harmonize” specifications for interactive TV.